Harding v. Liberty Hospital Corp.

RICHARDS, J., pro tem.

This is an appeal from a judgment in favor of the defendant after its demurrer had been sustained to the plaintiffs’ first amended complaint, the latter declining to further amend. The first amended complaint alleged in substance that at some date prior to October 11, 1913, the plaintiff Margaret A. Harding had entered into a contract with the defendant, a corporation operating a hospital and carrying on therein “the general business of furnishing medicines and medical and surgical treatment, ambulance and hospital care to the sick and injured,” by the terms of which contract said corporation agreed to furnish to the said plaintiff medical and surgical treatment “when the same may be rendered necessary by any acci

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dental injury or in sickness or disease”; that on the eleventh day of October, 1913, the said plaintiff suffered a fracture of certain bones of her left leg at the knee joint, which rendered it necessary for her to have medical and surgical treatment under the terms of said contract; and that on or about said last-named day the defendant undertook the treatment of said plaintiff for said injury and did, through its chief surgeon, render and furnish all surgical and medical treatment received by said plaintiff therefor; that the said chief surgeon of defendant was incompetent by reason of a lack of skill and experience to give plaintiff and to her said injury the medical and surgical treatment necessary and proper therefor, and that in treating said plaintiff for said injury the said chief surgeon of defendant wholly failed and neglected to use and exercise reasonable and ordinary care, diligence, and skill in reducing the fracture of said limb and in treating the same, and carelessly, negligently, improperly, and unskillfully set the bones thereof, and negligently, carelessly, and unskillfully failed and omitted to use and employ the necessary, ordinary, proper, and approved methods in the reduction and treatment of said fracture; and negligently, carelessly, and unskillfully failed and omitted to remedy and correct the defects resulting from said negligent, careless, and unskillful reduction and treatment, at a time when said defects could reasonably have been corrected and remedied by the exercise of ordinary care, skill, and diligence, although he well knew that said defects existed. By reason whereof, and solely on account of defendant’s failure to furnish a competent and skilled surgeon to treat plaintiff for said injury as aforesaid and the aforesaid negligent, careless, and unskillful treatment of said injury by the aforesaid chief surgeon of said defendant, said plaintiff’s left leg has become and is short, weak, crooked, and deformed and the usual and proper use thereof permanently impaired, and said plaintiff rendered permanently lame, crippled, and deformed to her damage in the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars, for which sum the plaintiffs prayed judgment in their favor and for their costs.