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Winstead v. Claiborne County Hospital and Nursing Home3/27/2001
In this wrongful death action, the Trial Court held that defendant's nurses met the standard of care required of them in the treatment and care of the deceased, and dismissed the case. On appeal, we reverse and enter Judgment for damages.
Tenn. R. App. P.3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Circuit Court Reversed.
Herschel Pickens Franks, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which Charles D. Susano, Jr., J., and D. Michael Swiney, J., joined.
OPINION
In this wrongful death action, the Complaint alleged that the hospital employees failed to properly carry out the orders of the treating physician and failed to properly inform the physician of the patient's condition, that these acts/omissions did not meet the requisite professional standard of care, and resulted in the decedent's death. The hospital denied the allegations, and the case was tried in November, 1998. The Trial Court took the case under submission, and entered final judgment on July 26, 2000, dismissing the complaint and found that the decedent's care "was within the standards of the hospital" and the "standard of care as given was not deficient nor did this contribute to the death of the patient."
In this non-jury trial, our standard of review is de novo with a presumption of correctness of the Trial Court's findings of fact, unless the preponderance of the evidence is otherwise. Tenn. R. App. P. 13(d); McCarty v. McCarty, 863 S.W.2d 716,719 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1992). No presumption of correctness attaches to the trial court's legal conclusions. Union Carbide Corp. v. Huddleston, 854 S.W.2d 87 (Tenn. 1993).
Plaintiffs insist that the Trial Court's findings are not supported by the evidence presented. In order to prove their malpractice claim, plaintiffs had the burden of showing the standard of care in the profession and in the community in which the defendant operates, or a similar community, and that defendant acted with less than ordinary and reasonable care in accordance with such standard, and as a proximate result of defendant's negligence, the decedent suffered injuries which would not otherwise have occurred. Tenn. Code Ann. ยง29-26-115.
The evidence establishes that decedent, a 32 year old female, was admitted to defendant hospital on January 22, 1990 for an elective work-up for complaints of abdominal swelling with no acute distress. After midnight, decedent's condition dramatically worsened and defendant's nursing staff kept in telephone contact with the admitting physician. During the early morning hours and shortly before 5:00 a.m., decedent told the nursing staff that she was going to die, and the evidence establishes that her stomach ruptured around 5:00 a.m. The admitting physician, Dr. Thomas, arrived around 5:30 a.m. and proceeded to perform surgery around 8:15 a.m. The surgery was performed but decedent expired later due to acute respiratory distress syndrome, which was caused by trauma to her lungs from the rupture of the stomach. Dr. Thomas testified that the delay in consenting to surgery was a factor in decedent's death, but he could not say it was greater than 50%. He also opined that the nurses met the standard of care required of them. The nurses on duty that evening were Martha Harrell, an L.P.N. and Dorothy Davis, R.N., the nurse supervisor.
Nurse Davis testified that Nurse Harrell had taken decedent's blood pressure at 3:50 a.m. and recorded it on a worksheet, but must have failed to transfer it to her chart. Nurse Davis stated that she told Dr. Thomas at that time that the decedent's vital signs were stable, but that she was uncomfortable. The nurse later testified that she told Dr. Thomas that decedent was having a
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