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Segrest v. Gillette12/5/1989
Plaintiff does not assign error to any issues relevant to defendants Charlotte Memorial Hospital and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority's alleged negligence. The judgment of the trial court that Amy Segrest's death was not caused by negligence of these defendants is affirmed. The remainder of this opinion will address issues relevant to the alleged negligence of defendants Gillette, Greenhoot and Southeast Anesthesia Associates, P.A. (hereinafter Gillette, et al.).
Plaintiff first contends the trial court erred by excluding Amy Segrest's death certificate from evidence. The death certificate contained, in pertinent part, the following statements:
Death Caused By:
(a) Immediate Cause: Acute Liver Failure with Massive Necrosis
(b) Due to, or as a Consequence of: History of Halothane Anesthesia
Dr. Hobart Wood, the medical examiner who signed the death certificate, testified on voir dire that he did not conduct any part of the autopsy on Amy Segrest and was not in a position to give an opinion on the cause of her death. Given Dr. Wood's own admission that he could not give an opinion as to Amy Segrest's cause of death, the trial court did not err in excluding the death certificate from evidence.
Plaintiff next contends the trial court erred by excluding the testimony of Dr. Wood, the medical examiner, concerning the cause of Amy Segrest's death. The reasons for excluding the death certificate apply equally to Dr. Wood's testimony. The ruling excluding the trial testimony was correct.
Plaintiff, in his next assignment of error, contends the trial court erred by admitting into evidence a Miscellaneous Lab Slip that came to be known during the trial as the "IgM slip," as well as expert opinions based upon that slip. We agree with plaintiff that the IgM slip itself was inadmissible hearsay and should have been excluded as substantive evidence of the facts contained therein. However, the IgM slip was admissible for the limited purpose of showing the facts upon which the expert opinions as to Amy Segrest's cause of death were based.
Testimony at trial showed the following: During the period just before Amy Segrest's death, her doctors conducted various tests in an attempt to determine the cause of her deteriorating condition. On 24 January 1983, several hours before her death, one of her doctors requested a test for the Epstein-Barr virus. The test was performed at Presbyterian Hospital, the only Charlotte Hospital equipped to perform the Epstein-Barr test. At the relevant time, there were two different Epstein-Barr virus tests available: an IgG test, which showed past exposure to the virus, and an IgM test, which showed a current acute infection with the virus. Presbyterian Hospital had the capability to perform both the IgG and IgM tests, although the IgM test had only become available at Presbyterian in early January 1983. The lab slip from Presbyterian indicated her Epstein-Barr test result was "positive 1:160." None of the documents available at the time of trial (hospital chart, lab slips, Charlotte Memorial Hospital log book) specified which Epstein-Barr test was requested or actually conducted.
Sometime after November 1985, Dr. Hershey, who was affiliated with defendant Southeast Anesthesia Associates, asked Ms. Marilee Martin, a Charlotte Memorial lab technician, to obtain further information on the Epstein-Barr test results. Ms. Martin's practice was to call the hospital that performed a particular test to obtain the information requested by a doctor. As a result of her inquiry to Presbyterian Hospital, Ms. Martin wrote out the Miscellaneous Lab Slip that came to be known as the "IgM
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