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Arrow International2/12/2003
This is an action brought by appellee Misty Sparks for the wrongful death of her father, Robert "Grumpy" Long. Mr. Long bled to death on December 18, 1997, while he was a patient at the Baptist Medical Center in Little Rock. Appellee sued the hospital, the attending physicians, and appellant Arrow International (hereafter "Arrow"), alleging that their conduct proximately caused her father's death. After settling her claims against the hospital and the physicians, appellee proceeded to trial against Arrow and received a $700,000 compensatory damage verdict. The jury apportioned twenty-five percent of the fault to Arrow, thus making it liable for $175,000 of the award. In addition, the jury held Arrow liable for 4 million dollars in punitive damages.
Arrow appeals from the verdict and makes four arguments. The first three involve evidentiary rulings by the trial court on the admission of expert testimony, the admission of prior, similar occurrences, and the exclusion of a witness's deposition testimony. The fourth argument concerns the punitive-damage award. We find no error on any issue presented and therefore affirm the jury's verdict.
Arrow manufactures a medical device called a percutaneous sheath introducer (PSI). The PSI facilitates the insertion of catheters into a patient's body. The particular device at issue in this case is a two- piece apparatus. One piece is a long, straight sheath introducer, shaped something like a straw, with a lock on the end. The second piece has a valve that attaches to the end of the sheath lock and a clear plastic tube that dangles from a side port of the valve. The tube has a sealing cap on the end. When the PSI pieces are attached and implanted into a patient, the sheath introducer is placed in the patient's vein, usually the jugular vein; the valve remains outside the patient, as does the side tube, which may be used for the introduction of fluids. If a catheter is threaded through the valve and sheath introducer, a catheter guard is often placed around the valve.
On December 11, 1997, Robert Long had a kidney removed at the White River Medical Center in Batesville, pursuant to a diagnosis of cancer. While there, a PSI was inserted into his right jugular vein to facilitate the use of a Swan-Ganz catheter, which monitored his cardiac output. On December 17, 1997, Long was transferred to Baptist Medical Center in Little Rock with the PSI still implanted and the Swan-Ganz catheter still attached. He was kept in intensive care for a period, but thereafter, his Swan-Ganz was removed, and he was transferred to a regular room. The PSI remained implanted, although it was not in use. According to the ICU nurse, she secured the valve and the side tube against Long's body with tape before he was transferred.
On December 18, the floor nurse checked on Long at 2:40 a.m. and noted no problems. However, at 3:18 a.m., the nurse returned to the room and found a large pool of blood. Long was dead, having bled to death.
Appellee, as administratrix of her father's estate, sued appellant on a products-liability theory, alleging that the two-piece design of the PSI was inherently dangerous and that the separation of the two pieces had caused Long to bleed to death. At trial, she advanced the theory that, when the catheter guard was removed from the PSI by turning it in a counter-clockwise motion, the valve, which likewise loosened in a counter-clockwise motion, inadvertently separated from the sheath, causing blood to flow from the separation point. Arrow defended on the theory that the bleeding occurred not from the point where the two pieces of the unit conjoined but through the side tube, from which Long had apparently removed the end
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