Court Opinion

ID: 9680648
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:35:44.31943+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:29.855847
License: Public Domain

BARRETT, Commissioner.
The appellant Maxim Koprivica alleged that in September 1964 while a patient in Bethesda General Hospital and “not aware of what he was doing, (he) attempted to leave said hospital by sliding down some blankets tied together * * * slipped and fell to the ground below, suffering injuries” entitling him to damages of $50,000. *85He alleged that the hospital was negligent in that “its agents and employees in that knowing his condition and the manner in which it would manifest itself, no adequate or sufficient watch was maintained over him; that he was assigned to a room which could be locked from the inside; that the noises he made in moving his bed and an oxygen cylinder to barricade his door alerted or should have alerted the hospital, its agents and employees that something out of the ordinary was occurring in plaintiff’s room, yet no action or precaution for the protection of plaintiff was taken by defendant.” '
In response to this pleading the hospital moved for summary judgment alleging that it was a general hospital, “a pro forma corporation not organized for pecuniary profit and is a benevolent, scientific, education, non profit and eleemosynary institution,” and that “(b)y reason of the foregoing, defendant is immune from suit or damages based upon its alleged torts, which immunity the defendant now claims.” After a hearing on the motion for summary judgment, the hospital introducing its 1892 and 1899 records of pro forma incorporation “to establish and maintain hospitals, clinics, laboratories, training schools and all other activities necessary for the scientific care and treatment of the sick and injured,” the court sustained the motion, entered judgment for the hospital and the plaintiff Koprivica has perfected an appeal to this court.
The appellant recognizing that in similar if not identical situations this jurisdiction has adopted and adhered to the so-called “charitable immunity” doctrine urges because of “change in conditions and circumstances,” including the recently enacted medicare legislation, that this court should re-examine “public policy” and prospectively abrogate “the rule of charitable immunity for voluntary nonprofit hospitals.” In support of his position the appellant points to twenty jurisdictions and their cases in which the immunity doctrine once prevailed but has now been abrogated. Other cases, law review articles, learned treatises and journals are referred to and it is said that only five states, including Missouri, now adhere “to the doctrine of total immunity” and upon all these considerations it is urged that this court “join the mainstream of current thought in this field and establish a public policy which says hospitals must exert an ordinary standard of care in treating their paying patients or be held liable for failure to do so.” In support of his contentions the appellant has lodged in this court brochures dealing with health and hospital insurance, statistical data as to hospital charges, income and losses and also journals of the American Hospital Association.
One of the difficulties with the presentation of all this data is that it was neither received nor offered in evidence and was not of course officially before the trial court. Some of this material, particularly the learned articles, is referred to in a number of the cases in which the doctrine was repudiated, as for example the recent cases of Flagiello v. Pennsylvania Hospital, 417 Pa. 486, 208 A.2d 193, and Adkins v. St. Francis Hospital of Charleston, (W. Va.), 143 S.E.2d 154, and it may be that in one sense this court could judicially know some of these things. But as stated, there was no offer of proof by the plaintiff and the respondent hospital relying solely on its charitable immunity offered no countervailing evidence or statistical data and thus as to the basic attack upon the doctrine, even if an open question, this was not the traditional adversary proceeding in which every facet of the problem was before the court. On the motion for summary judgment in which the appellant tacitly joined, thinking no doubt that it was sufficient to abstractly attack the doctrine on principle, his only insistence was that the record show that Bethesda General Hospital had amended its corporate charter and was no longer a “pro forma corporation” (RSMo 1959, § 352.060) but “has adopted the ‘General non-for profit corporation,’ statutes” (RSMo 1959, §§ 355.010, 355.020). The *86hospital’s 1962 amended charter being stipulated plaintiff’s counsel joined in the summary judgment submission. And so the case is here on Mr. Koprivica’s petition, the verified motion and the amended charter. Insofar as illustratively material here the amended charter provides that “(t)he purposes for which this corporation is organized shall be (a) to establish, maintain and operate hospitals, infirmaries, clinics, laboratories, training schools, and all other activities necessary or convenient for the scientific care and treatment of the sick, infirm and injured, the chronic sick and convalescent, * * * (b) to establish, maintain and operate in a charitable manner homes for aged Christian men and women who would otherwise be unable to provide for themselves without hardship and to render such service at a cost substantially below its actual cost and to provide purely charitable services when possible * * *, (c) to protect and care for abandoned, ill treated, destitute and friendless children * * *. No part of the net earnings of the corporation shall inure to the benefit of any member, director, officer of the corporation, or any private individual (except that reasonable compensation may be paid for services rendered * * *).”
In the circumstances of this record it is not necessary to prolong this opinion, virtually the same arguments and appeals were made as recently as 1961 in an attempt to persuade the court to abrogate the charitable immunity doctrine as to hospitals. The arguments and cases were reviewed at some length but the doctrine was again affirmed “primarily as a rule of public policy, in the absence of legislation and of an indicated contrary legislative intent.” Schulte v. Missionaries of La Salette Corp. of Mo., Mo., 352 S.W.2d 636, 639. Other relevant Missouri hospital cases including hospitals organized under RSMo 1959, §§ 352.010 and 352.020 are Dille v. St. Luke’s Hospital, 355 Mo. 436, 196 S.W.2d 615; Nicholas v. Evangelical Deaconess Home, 281 Mo. 182, 219 S.W. 643, and Adams v. University Hospital, 122 Mo.App. 675, 99 S.W. 453. And see Bethesda General Hospital v. State Tax Commission, Mo., 396 S.W.2d 631. In these circumstances the summary judgment is affirmed.
STOCKARD and PRITCHARD, CC., concur.
PER CURIAM:
The foregoing opinion by BARRETT, C., is adopted as the opinion of the court.
EAGER, P. J., and DONNELLY, J., concur.
FINCH, J., concurs in result in separate concurring opinion filed.