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Katz v. Mt. Sinai Medical Center5/7/1998
JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED.
Lillian Katz appeals from a decision of the common pleas court granting summary judgment to the Mount Sinai Medical Center in connection with her claims alleging professional negligence of a nurse's aide arising out of a fall she sustained while a patient in the hospital's rehabilitation unit. After a thorough review of the record and the law applicable to this case, we have concluded Katz failed to meet her burden of going forward with evidence in connection with the summary judgment motion and therefore affirm the judgment of the trial court in this case.
The record reveals that on August 31, 1994, Lillian Katz underwent a total knee replacement performed by Dr. Leb at the Mount Sinai Medical Center. Thereafter, she entered the hospital's rehabilitation unit, where the physician's transfer order, according to nurse Carolyn Constiner-Lieberman, the Program Director for the Sub-Acute Unit at Mount Sinai, stated for Katz to ambulate as tolerated, full weight bearing; upon her transfer, a nurse's aide assisting her instructed that she stand and get on a scale. While standing on the scale, her knee buckled and she went down, reopening her knee, which required a second surgery. Following that surgical repair of her knee, she returned to the rehabilitation unit of Mount Sinai and subsequently was discharged from the hospital on September 29, 1994.
Thereafter, Katz filed this action alleging her injuries were caused by the combined negligence of Dr. Robert Leb and Mount Sinai and its employees and agents, claiming that they failed to use reasonable medical care at the time she stood on the scale. On July 26, 1996, Katz voluntarily dismissed Dr. Leb from the suit; and at its December 31, 1996 final pre-trial, the court ordered Katz to submit an expert report by March 10, 1997 and scheduled the case for jury trial on May 5, 1997.
Thereafter, in April, 1997, Mount Sinai moved for summary judgment on the basis that Katz failed to present any expert reports addressing the standard of care issues. Katz filed a brief in opposition alleging a departure from the standard of care promulgated by the hospital and urging that Mount Sinai nurses Lieberman, Mays, and Cervante established it in their depositions. The trial court then granted summary judgment in favor of Mount Sinai, and Katz now appeals and raises the following assignments of error for our review:
I. THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN GRANTING THE SUMMARY JUDGMENT MOTION OF APPELLEE MT. SINAI HOSPITAL IN THAT APPELLANT WAS NOT REQUIRED TO SUBMIT AN EXPERT REPORT TO ESTABLISH THE REQUISITE STANDARD OF CARE.
II. THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN GRANTING THE SUMMARY JUDGMENT MOTION OF APPELLEE IN THAT MATERIAL ISSUES OF FACT EXIST AS TO WHETHER APPELLEE BREACHED ITS COMMON LAW DUTY TO EXERCISE REASONABLE CARE UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES.
III. THE TRIAL COURT ABUSED ITS DISCRETION IN WEIGHING THE CREDIBILITY OF THE PLAINTIFF'S AFFIDAVIT TESTIMONY AND THEREBY CAUSED MATERIAL PREJUDICE TO APPELLANT.
Katz now contends the trial court erred when it granted summary judgment to Mount Sinai, arguing that expert testimony is not required to meet her evidentiary burden, because her case raises a matter of ordinary negligence rather than medical malpractice.
Mount Sinai urges the trial court properly granted summary judgment, arguing that since Katz pled a case involving a breach of the standard of care by its agents and employees, expert testimony is required to establish the prevailing standard of care, a breach of that standard, and also that the negligence of the nurse's aide was the proximate cause of the patient's injury .
The issue then
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