Court Opinion

ID: 9849408
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:39:50.314017+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:23.493810
License: Public Domain

Birdsong, Judge,
dissenting.
We deal here with the applicability of either a one-year or a two-year statute of limitations. The one-year statute, as observed in the dissent by Chief Judge Deen, applies where a foreign object (i.e., a sponge, a towel, etc.) is placed in the body of a patient and is left therein by the treating physician. To protect the public against such torts and resulting injuries, which ordinarily do not manifest themselves at the time of the treatment, but arise as a delayed bodily reaction to an object or substance negligently left in the body (and thus remain hidden from the patient), it was logical and proper for the legislature to carve out and create a specific period of limitation geared to the time that the patient discovered the presence of the substance or object rather than the time that the surgical treatment occurred. However, because it is an accepted medical procedure for *786some foreign objects or substances to be placed and left in the body by the treating physician as a part of specific treatment procedures, such as chemical compounds (i.e., used in radiation or X-ray treatment), fixation devices (i.e., pins in broken bones), or prosthetic aids or devices (i.e., pacemakers, heart valves, etc.), it was equally proper and logical for the legislature to exclude as negligent acts covered by the one-year period of limitations, those designated foreign objects or substances when used in a legitimate treatment procedure. Code Ann. § 3-1103. Nevertheless, should a surgeon be negligent in the use or insertion of a chemical compound, a fixation device, or prosthetic aid or device as a pari: of a treatment procedure, the two-year statute of limitation remains applicable, for it is the treatment itself that gives rise to the injury, even though this includes the insertion of chemical compounds, fixation devices, or prosthetic aids or devices.
I am also in agreement with Chief Judge Deen’s observation that we are bound by the case of Parker v. Vaughan, 124 Ga. App. 300, 303 (183 SE2d 605) which expressly limited the doctrine of continuing medical torts to those cases wherein the surgeon inserts a foreign substance or object other than those excepted in the statute and negligently closes the substance or the object in the patient’s body. See Clark v. Memorial Hospital of Bainbridge, 145 Ga. App. 305 (243 SE2d 695). The doctrine of inclusio unius est exclusio alterius further reinforces the conclusion that the legislature intended to limit the doctrine of continuing medical tort liability only to those substances or objects placed into and negligently left in the patient’s body during surgical procedures. If the mere treatment of an injury which includes a hidden object in the body unknown to the doctor or patient and not placed in the body by the doctor, can give rise to the limited continuing medical tort liability defined by the legislatively and narrowly defined exception relating to substances or objects used in surgical procedures and negligently left in the body, then the distinction between the one-year and two-year period of limitations becomes blurred, even indistinguishable, and renders the exception carved by the legislature meaningless. I therefore respectfully dissent from the unrestricted view *787of the majority and would affirm the grant of summary judgment.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge Deen, and Judge Underwood join in this dissent.