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Richardson v. Miller8/16/2000
This appeal involves a medical malpractice action stemming from the use of an infusion pump to administer terbutaline sulphate subcutaneously to arrest a pregnant woman's labor. After suffering a heart attack shortly before giving birth to a healthy child, the woman and her husband filed suit in the Circuit Court for Davidson County against her attending physician, the supplier of the infusion pump, and others alleging that their negligence had caused her heart attack. The woman's medical insurance carrier intervened to assert its contractual reimbursement rights based on the payments it had advanced for the woman's medical expenses. The trial court dismissed the insurance carrier's complaint, and a jury returned a verdict for the physician and the pump supplier. Among their issues on this appeal, the woman and her husband take issue with the exclusion of evidence regarding the FDA-approved uses of terbutaline and with the trial court's refusal to give their requested missing evidence instruction. The physician and the pump supplier assert that they were entitled to a directed verdict at the close of all the proof. Finally, the medical insurance carrier takes issue with the dismissal of its reimbursement claim. While we have determined that the trial court correctly overruled the motions for directed verdict, we conclude that the trial court erred by excluding the evidence regarding the off-label use of terbutaline and by declining to give the requested instruction. The trial court also erred by dismissing the medical insurance carrier's claim. Accordingly, we vacate the judgment for the physician and manufacturer of the pump and remand the case for a new trial.
Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Circuit Court Vacated and
Remanded
William C. Koch, Jr., L., delivered the opinion of the court, in which Henry F. Todd, P.J., M.S., joined. Ben H. Cantrell, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
OPINION
Cynthia Richardson married William Richardson in 1991. Ms. Richardson was a 26-year-old physical therapist, and Mr. Richardson was four years her junior. Ms. Richardson loved children, and the couple decided not to delay starting a family because Ms. Richardson, as she put it later, felt her "biological clock ticking." Ms. Richardson learned that she was pregnant with the couple's first child on Thanksgiving Day 1992. Her estimated due date was July 28, 1993.
Ms. Richardson sought her prenatal care from Dr. James Miller. In early January 1993, Ms. Richardson complained that she was experiencing periods of palpitations, rapid heartbeats, and shortness of breath. Dr. Miller referred her to Dr. James W. Ward, Jr., a cardiologist who had previously evaluated Ms. Richardson in 1987 for a similar complaint. Dr. Ward placed Ms. Richardson on a 24-hour heart monitor that showed only benign changes in her heart rhythm. Accordingly, Dr. Ward reported to Dr. Miller that he recommended no additions to Ms. Richardson's medical care. Ms. Richardson made no other cardiac complaints during subsequent office visits with Dr. Miller.
Ms. Richardson made her last prenatal office visit to Dr. Miller on June 23, 1993, when she was approximately thirty-five weeks pregnant. The checkup was routine and ended with the doctor's office scheduling her for a return visit the following week. Events, however, brought the parties together sooner. On the afternoon of the very next day, Ms. Richardson was admitted to Nashville Memorial Hospital in labor. Dr. Miller was immediately concerned that the labor was premature and that there could possibly be complications for the baby if born at thirty- five weeks. He ordered bed rest and hydration and tested
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