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Taylor v. Vencor2/1/2000
"predominately intellectual and varied in character (as distinguished from routine mental, manual, mechanical, or physical work)"); 1 David W. Louisell and Harold Williams, Medical Malpractice § 8.01 (1998) (" cts or omissions in malpractice involve matters of medical science").
In Lewis, a patient was injured while being transferred from the examination table to her wheelchair. The patient sued the defendant for failure to use reasonable care by not raising and lowering the head of the examining table in the course of performing the plaintiff's examination. In reversing the trial court's dismissal of plaintiff's claim for failure to comply with Rule 9(j), this Court held that " ny negligence which may have occurred when the defendant and [plaintiff's live-in assistant] attempted to move the plaintiff from the examination table back to his wheelchair falls squarely within the parameters of ordinary negligence." Id. at 608, 503 S.E.2d at 674.
Likewise in this case, the observance and supervision of the plaintiff, when she smoked in the designated smoking area, did not constitute an occupation involving specialized knowledge or skill. Preventing a patient from dropping a match or a lighted cigarette upon themselves, while in a designated smoking room, does not involve matters of medical science. Such behaviors are properly applied to the standards of ordinary negligence. The trial court's granting of defendants' motion to dismiss was error in regard to plaintiff's ordinary negligence claim.
Plaintiff next assigns as error the trial court's denial of her motion to amend the complaint. Since the acts complained of only give rise to an ordinary negligence claim, any amendment of her complaint to comply with Rule 9(j) would be futile. Thus, the trial court did not err in denying plaintiff's motion to amend.
Affirmed in part and reversed in part.
Judges GREENE and TIMMONS-GOODSON concur.
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