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Bryant v. Lagrange Memorial Hospital12/17/2003
mony regarding the time periods he ordered the C-section and began the incision, and the anesthesiologist's testimony that from his home he could typically get to the Hospital within 10 minutes of receiving a call. Plaintiffs' reliance on the common knowledge exception is misplaced.
Again, whether Dr. Kim ordered the C-section at 4:30 a.m., as he testified at his deposition, or at 5 a.m., as he testified at trial, the fact remains that no witness, expert or otherwise, offered any testimony criticizing the nurses or the Hospital for anything that was done after Dr. Kim ordered the C-section, regardless of the timing of that order. In the instant case, the issue of whether the nurses completed their preparations for the C-section within the standard of care pertained to matters involving medical judgment. Therefore, expert testimony was required to establish the standard of care, its breach, and the element of proximate cause. Here, there was no expert opinion testimony supporting any allegation that the nurses violated the applicable standard of care in completing their preparations for the C-section. Neither was there expert opinion testimony that the conduct of the nurses in completing preparations for the C-section proximately caused the baby's injuries. We hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to give subparagraph D of issue instruction No. 13.
II. IPI Civil (2000) No. 105.01
Plaintiffs next contend that the trial court erred in refusing to give three modified versions of the pattern duty instruction, IPI Civil (2000) No. 105.01. Plaintiffs maintain that the modified instructions told the jury to consider "opinion and policies" as evidence of the Hospital's negligence. Plaintiffs argue that the instruction the trial court actually gave the jury, IPI Civil (2000) No. 105.01, limited the jury's consideration to only evidence received by way of "expert" testimony. We must reject plaintiffs' contentions.
IPI Civil (2000) No. 105.01 "does not instruct the jury that it can only consider expert testimony in reaching a verdict." Regala v. Rush North Shore Medical Center, 323 Ill. App. 3d 579, 586, 752 N.E.2d 443 (2001). Rather, that instruction, which was given here, expressly tells jurors that they could consider expert testimony or "evidence of professional standards or conduct presented at trial," in determining the standard of care and any deviation therefrom. Therefore, plaintiffs' argument that the jury might not recognize that it could consider the testimony of Dr. Kim and the nurses is meritless.
In addition, since this case concerned professional negligence and not institutional negligence, the standard of care required of the Hospital could not be shown by evidence of hospital policies and procedures. See Advincula, 176 Ill. 2d at 29 (stating that the standard of care required of a hospital in a case of institutional negligence may be shown by a wide variety of evidence including hospital bylaws, accreditation standards, custom and community practice).
III. Rule 213
Plaintiffs finally contend that the trial court abused its discretion by allowing the Hospital's expert, Dr. MacGregor, to testify with opinions not previously disclosed pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 213(g) (177 Ill. 2d R. 213(g)). Specifically, plaintiffs maintain that Dr. MacGregor gave not-previously-disclosed opinion testimony that the nurses could not have heard the fetal monitor give audible tones if the monitor was unable to pick up sufficient heart tones to make uninterrupted paper tracings.
Prior to Dr. MacGregor's testimony, Nurse Horner testified that during the time the external monitor was not tracing pr
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