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Dover Elevator Co. v. Swann3/25/1994
on res ipsa loquitur was unnecessary where violations of city ordinance and Maryland Annotated Code, which one could clearly infer were the direct and proximate causes of plaintiff's injury, constituted prima facie case of negligence); Bernfeld, 226 Md. at 409, 174 A.2d at 57 (holding res ipsa loquitur inapplicable where plaintiff attempted to establish specific grounds of negligence).
There is an additional reason why res ipsa loquitur is inapplicable to the instant case. Moynihan purported to offer an expert opinion regarding the actual and specific negligence on Dover's part which caused the accident. Consequently, this was not a case where the jury was presented with some evidence and then permitted to draw its own inference as to whether there was negligence. At the very least, Moynihan drew his own inference from the evidence he examined, and then presented that inference to the jury as part of his expert testimony. The jury was not asked to draw any inferences from circumstantial evidence presented in the plaintiff's case in chief, but to decide whether it accepted as credible the expert's testimony concerning why negligence must have been the cause of this accident.
In this respect, our opinion in Meda v. Brown, 318 Md. 418, 569 A.2d 202 (1990), best reflects the circumstances of this case. See also Orkin v. Holy Cross Hospital, 318 Md. 429, 569 A.2d 207 (1990)(companion case to Meda v. Brown). In Meda, the plaintiff sought to establish that the defendant-anesthesiologist's negligent positioning of the plaintiff's arm during surgery permanently damaged the plaintiff's ulnar nerve. Although the jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, the trial judge granted the defendant's motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict based on his belief that, by relying on an inference, the plaintiff had improperly invoked the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur. Meda, 318 Md. at 420, 569 A.2d at 203. The Court of Special Appeals reversed the trial judge and directed the entry of a judgment in accordance with the jury's verdict. See Brown v. Meda, 74 Md. App. 331, 537 A.2d 635 (1988). The intermediate appellate court noted that "whether we refer to the facts herein as res ipsa loquitur or as proof of negligence by circumstantial evidence the result is the same." Brown v. Meda, 74 Md. App. at 345 n.2, 537 A.2d at 642 n.2. This Court, however, made the following determination:
"We affirm, not on the basis of the applicability of res ipsa loquitur, but because the testimony was sufficient to support the inferential conclusion of negligence drawn by the plaintiff's experts."
Meda, 318 Md. at 420, 569 A.2d at 203.
At the Meda trial, the plaintiff offered testimony from two medical experts, and neither witness could say precisely how the plaintiff's arm was positioned during surgery so as to cause the alleged ulnar nerve damage. Meda, 318 Md. at 427, 569 A.2d at 206. Nonetheless, the plaintiff's first expert, Dr. Gary Belaga, testified to his opinion that "within reasonable medical probability ... the injury to [the plaintiff's] ulnar nerve occurred in the operating room ... and that to permit that to happen was not in keeping with the standard of care required of the anesthesiologist." Id. The plaintiff's second expert, Dr. John Rybock, similarly concluded that "there was a deviation from the standard of care in that Dr. Meda failed
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