Court Opinion

ID: 9846216
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:37:01.747815+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:35.416061
License: Public Domain

HEARN, C.J.
In this appeal of a chiropractic malpractice action, Diana B. Ardis and William David Ardis raise issues concerning the exclusion of evidence, jury instructions, and the trial court’s refusal to strike the cross-examination of Diana Ardis’s treating physician based on ex parte contact with the opposing side. We reverse and remand.
FACTS
In their complaint filed June 1, 2001, Diana and William Ardis (collectively “Ardis”) alleged that Edward L. Sessions negligently injured Diana by performing spinal manipulations on February 19, 1996. Ardis claims Sessions’s negligence caused a ruptured or herniated disk in Diana’s back, an increase in the severity of her initial injury, and ultimately the need for back surgery. Sessions denied that he performed a manipulation on that date. His notes indicate Diana’s disk was herniated when she fell from a ladder prior to coming to his office on February 19.1 At trial, Sessions testified that instead of a manipulation that day, he used a less invasive treatment, which would have been insufficient to herniate Diana’s disk.
At an in camera hearing, Sessions, who served as a municipal court judge for the City of Hanahan, moved to prevent Ardis from making an inquiry into his public reprimand by the South Carolina Supreme Court. In 2000, Sessions was reprimanded for acts of judicial misconduct, which included making and directing the making of false entries in judicial records. See In re Sessions, 342 S.C. 427, 538 S.E.2d 1 (2000). Sessions also moved in limine to exclude any mention of his billing practices in regard to his different fee schedules for *232individuals and insurance carriers. The trial court granted Sessions’s motions.
At trial, Ardis objected to the following instructions given by the trial court regarding the applicable standard of care:2
The law does not require of him absolute accuracy either in his practice or his judgment ... It does not even require of him the utmost degree of care and skill of which the human mind is capable.
I instruct you that a physician is not an insurer of a cure or even of a beneficial result; thus, the mere fact that a treatment is not beneficial or that it is even harmful will not of itself raise a presumption of negligence ... I instruct you that a bad result of the failure to cure is not by itself insufficient to raise an inference or a presumption of negligence on the part of a physician.
I charge you that a physician is not ordinarily liable for making an incorrect diagnosis where it is made in good faith and there is reasonable doubt as to the nature of the physical conditions involved or as to what should be done in accordance with recognized authority in good current practice or where it is made in good faith on observation of the patient.
The jury returned a verdict for Sessions. The trial court denied Ardis’s motion for JNOY, or in the alternative for a new trial. This appeal followed.
LAW/ANALYSIS
Ardis contends the trial court erred in instructing the jury regarding the applicable standard of care for a medical malpractice claim. Specifically, Ardis argues the instruction given by the trial court raised the standard to a subjective standard, meaning that Ardis’s burden of proof would require a showing that any error of judgment was made in bad faith. We agree.3
*233A trial court is required to charge only the current and correct law of South Carolina. Cohens v. Atkins, 333 S.C. 345, 349, 509 S.E.2d 286, 289 (Ct.App.1998). “The substance of the law is what must be instructed to the jury, not any particular verbiage.... A jury charge which is substantially correct and covers the law does not require reversal.” Burroughs v. Worsham, 352 S.C. 382, 391, 574 S.E.2d 215, 220 (Ct.App.2002). When reviewing a jury charge for alleged error, the appellate court must consider the charge as a whole in light of the evidence and issues presented at trial. Daves v. Cleary, 355 S.C. 216, 224, 584 S.E.2d 423, 427 (Ct.App.2003). ‘Where a request to charge is timely made and involves a controlling legal principle, a refusal by the trial judge to charge the request constitutes reversible error.” Koutsogiannis v. BB&T, 365 S.C. 145, 149, 616 S.E.2d 425, 427-28 (2005). To warrant reversal for refusal to give a requested instruction, the refusal must have not only been erroneous, but prejudicial as well. Cohens, 333 S.C. at 349, 509 S.E.2d at 289; see also Daves, 355 S.C. at 224, 584 S.E.2d at 427 (stating a circuit court’s refusal to give a properly requested charge is reversible error only when the requesting party can demonstrate prejudice from the refusal).
The instructions given in the instant case are very similar to those addressed in the case of McCourt by and through McCourt v. Abernathy, 318 S.C. 301, 457 S.E.2d 603 (1995). In that case, McCourt, through the personal representative of her estate, filed a medical malpractice action against a doctor in connection with her death from sepsis. The defendant argued the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury as follows:
When a physician exercises ordinary care and sMll in keeping within recognized and proven methods, he is not liable for the result of a bona fide mistake in judgment.
A physician is not ordinarily liable for making an incorrect diagnosis where it is made in good faith and there is reasonable doubt as to the nature of the physical condition involved or as to what should be done in accordance with *234recognized authority and good current practice, or where it is made in good faith observation of a patient.
A physician cannot be held liable for a mere error in judgment.
When a physician exercises ordinary care and skill in keeping with recognized and proven methods he is not liable for the result of a mere mistake of judgment or for a bad result which does not occur because of any negligence on his part.
McCourt, 318 S.C. at 306, 457 S.E.2d at 606.
In affirming the refusal to give the charge requested, the supreme court stated that such a jury instruction impermissibly implied “to the jury that an error in judgment is actionable only if made in bad faith.” Id. at 306, 457 S.E.2d at 606. The court reasoned that this would “impose an unrealistic burden on the plaintiff to prove the doctor’s judgment was rendered with less than good faith.” Id.
Like the proposed instruction in McCourt, the trial court’s instruction in this case impermissibly implied to the jury that any error in judgment by Sessions would be actionable only if rendered in bad faith. Such an implication prejudiced Ardis because it imposed the same “unrealistic burden” disapproved of in McCourt.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated herein, the trial court’s decision is
REVERSED and REMANDED.
SHORT, J. concurs.
BEATTY, J. dissents in a separate opinion.

. Ardis claims that she received spinal manipulations merely to limber up for an upcoming ski trip and that she mentioned falling off of a ladder in jest.

. Ardis also objected to additional elements of the charge and requested an additional charge on spoliation of evidence.

. Because we reverse on this issue, we decline to address Ardis's remaining arguments. See Whiteside v. Cherokee County School Dist. No. One, 311 S.C. 335, 428 S.E.2d 886 (1993) (holding an appellate *233court need not address remaining issues when the resolution of a prior issue is dispositive).