Court Opinion

ID: 9465641
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:52:05.611614+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:17.641507
License: Public Domain

LEVENTHAL, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur fully in Parts I and II of Judge Robinson’s opinion for the court. It is a useful and sound development of the doctrine of informed consent that he presented for the court in Canterbury v. Spence.1 Although that doctrine typically operates in the real world to provide a basis for the plaintiff to go to the jury, in this case it dictates the directed verdict for defendant that the trial court entered.
I have difficulties with Part III, which holds that a nonsuit was precluded by plaintiff’s evidence that defendant was negligent in the performance of the tooth extraction. I concur in section A, developing the record, and in section B, which finds a dispute in the evidence on the issue whether defendant x-rayed plaintiff’s jaw before beginning the extraction. As to this, the case comes up in a stilted way, the verdict having been directed for defendant at the end of plaintiff’s ease, so that the record does not contain the case that the defendant would have put on. Presumably that would *664have included the x-rays that the defendant said he took. As to plaintiff’s claim that the x-rays were taken by defendant only after difficulties were encountered in the extraction procedure, I presume that the defendant’s x-rays would be probative since they would reflect the condition at the time of x-ray. Had the trial judge been more cautious on a point that was relatively demonstrable in proof, he would have avoided an extra burden on the resources of the parties and the courts.
I dissent from Part III C of Judge Robinson’s opinion. If the evidence at a new trial should demonstrate that defendant did take a pre-extraction x-ray and that this was not a matter of genuine issue, I would not find the plaintiff’s testimony of excessive force sufficient to go to the jury. The source of my difficulty is the combination of two subjective elements — the plaintiff’s perception of defendant’s behavior (calling for subjective testimony by the plaintiff), and the standard against which that behavior is to be judged (established here by the subjective testimony of the defendant that the appropriate degree of pressure was a matter of “feel”). How can the subjective testimony of the plaintiff as to how he felt show a violation of the standard established by the subjective testimony of the doctor as to how he felt? Rooted in a general prohibition of jury verdicts based on mere speculation, the law has a concern that doctors who must make sensitive determinations of “feel” (and other sensations) should not be subject to damage suits on the basis solely of a layman’s, and especially a plaintiff’s, perception of what is excessive.2

. 150 U.S.App.D.C. 263, 464 F.2d 772, cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1064, 93 S.Ct. 560, 34 L.Ed.2d 518 (1972).

. If I were writing for the majority on this point, I would expand on the basis on which, assuming genuine issue on whether a pre-extraction x-ray was taken, the plaintiffs testimony on the defendant’s force and direction might (a) be admissible and (b) be presented to the jury. The matter has some subtleties, and in the current press of business I do not expatiate.