Court Opinion

ID: 9769357
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 14:47:38.243335+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:01.448674
License: Public Domain

AVERY, P. J. (W. S.)
(concurring). My colleague, Judge L. D. BEJACH, who prepared the foregoing opinion for this Court, bases his conclusion that the hospital is liable upon the case of Rural Education Association v. Bush, 42 Tenn. App. 47-48, 298 S. W. (2d) 761, and the cases supporting that opinion. I fear that trial attorneys may not quite arrive at the same interpretation of Judge BEJACH’S opinion, as applied to the facts of the case, as do his colleagues on the Court.
He has correctly said that Dr. Schuler was not a party defendant in Rural Education Association v. Bush, supra. He has said that he was found to be an employee of the hospital, which was the hospital of the Rural Education *604Association and owned by a religions group, and tbe doctors were tbe direct employees of that hospital. Tbe doctors were assigned in tbe Bnsb case by tbe hospital. Tbe nurse was assigned in tbe Bush case by tbe hospital. There was only one nurse in connection with that operation. Tbe nurse and the doctor were both employees of the hospital, and Judge BEJACH has correctly said that Dr. Schuler bad “bought his peace by means of a covenant not to sue.” In that case tbe surgeon’s fee was paid by tbe hospital.
So that a correct application of that opinion to the instant case relates alone to the “scrub” nurse, Miss Jean Owens and her negligence. In the instant case there was also circulating nurses, a Miss Thompson to begin with, her “shift” ended and later a Miss Bose came in.
The scrub nurse, Miss Owens, had been trained by the hospital. She had been trained as a surgical nurse. The record shows that in her training she was so trained by the hospital that when serving in the capacity of a scrub nurse, acting within the sterile field of the operated patient, she would be required to, or that it was a part of her duty to count the sponges used by the surgeon, that is, the sponges that were used and thrown aside by him. This she did, and while the counting was not confirmed by the circulating nurse for the reasons stated in the majority opinion, she, the scrub nurse, made a mistake by miscounting the used sponges.
This nurse was not assigned to that surgery by Dr. French, nor by the parents of the child. She was assigned to that surgery by the hospital. The operating room and the equipment for the operation, including the instruments to be used by the surgeon, are furnished by *605the. hospital, and when charges are paid for this operating room and for this material that was nsed in the operation, such charges are made by the hospital directly and the doctor gets no part of it and has nothing to do with it.
The fact that the doctor was an approved staff member of the hospital with no other connection therewith, would not make the hospital liable for his negligence. There has to be something of a closer connection with the hospital by an employee or agent representing the hospital directly.
So it is that this nurse, Miss Owens, in performing the ministerial duty that she had been instructed to do in cases of this character, though under the direct instructions of the surgeon operating insofar as any aid she might be to him in the performance of the professional duty which he was required to do, the negligence with which she is charged is such that could be attributable only to the hospital.
So it seems to me that it should be said, just as is said in the majority opinion, in practical effect, that Dr. French must be held responsible for his own negligence. That negligence consisted in leaving the sponge within the abdomen of the child. The hospital must be charged with the negligence of the nurse in failing to count the used sponges correctly and informing the surgeon that one was unaccounted for. Her failure to correctly count them was negligence, and so had she correctly counted the sponges which the surgeon had used and thrown aside, and had reported that there was a sponge missing, then the mistake that the surgeon had made would have been immediately called to his attention, an x-ray would have been brought into play which would have located the *606sponge left in the abdomen and it would have been immediately removed.
In other words, the duty on the part of the nurse was to correctly count the sponges taken into the room and correctly count the sponges used and make the deduction necessary to account for every sponge that was carried into that operating room. In doing so she was the agent of the hospital. So she was negligent in failing to perform the duty that she had been taught to do and was required to do as an employee of the hospital acting as a surgical nurse.
Negligence, without going to the necessity of pointing out the opinions which define it, certainly can be said to be the leaving undone of some duty that should have been done as well as doing something that should not have been done.
Except for the fact that the nurse was assigned by the hospital, trained by the hospital, taught by the hospital to count the sponges and it was a part of her duty representing the hospital to do that correctly, the hospital could not be held liable.
Therefore, the distinctions made in this case from the one which has been used as the basis for the majority opinion, Rural Education Association v. Bush, supra, and the citations from that quoted part of that opinion are distinguishable in the respect that I have set out herein. The nurse’s negligence only is that which binds the hospital as her employer.
Except for the fact that the circulating nurse was sent from the room by the surgeon, and had no opportunity to count the used sponges before the incision was closed, it *607is probable that ber failure to do so might also be a part of tbe proximate cause. Certainly the failure of the scrub nurse in making a proper count, calculation- and giving the correct information to the surgeon is a part of the proximate cause resulting in the failure to perform the duty she owed to the patient, thereby binding her employer, the defendant hospital, which under the facts revealed by this record, would not have been liable for the damages resulting to the involved child. There is some competent, substantial and convincing evidence to support the verdict.