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Battaglia v. Jonesalexander5/27/2005
Argued October 15, 2003
JUSTICE OWEN delivered the opinion of the Court, in which JUSTICE HECHT, JUSTICE WAINWRIGHT, JUSTICE MEDINA, JUSTICE GREEN, and JUSTICE JOHNSON joined.
CHIEF JUSTICE JEFFERSON, JUSTICE O'NEILL and JUSTICE BRISTER joined parts II and III.
JUSTICE BRISTER filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, and dissenting from the judgment, in which CHIEF JUSTICE JEFFERSON and JUSTICE O'NEILL joined.
The central issues presented by these health care liability claims are whether, based on the facts and procedural posture of this case, two physicians' professional associations can be held liable for their own direct negligence (as distinguished from vicariously liable for the actions of their employee), whether the professional associations are jointly and severally liable, and how to calculate prejudgment interest when other parties have settled. We hold that 1) liability against the professional associations was not foreclosed by a directed verdict in favor of one physician in his individual capacity and the jury's failure to find the other physician negligent in his individual capacity, 2) there is legally sufficient evidence that the professional associations were negligent, 3) there is legally sufficient evidence that the professional associations engaged in a joint venture separate from the joint venture to which the trial court granted a directed verdict, and 4) the trial court did not properly calculate prejudgment interest under section 16.02 of former article 4590i. The court of appeals affirmed the trial court's judgment in all respects. Accordingly, we reverse the court of appeals' judgment in part and remand this case to the trial court to calculate prejudgment interest consistent with this opinion.
I.
Forty-year-old Mark Alexander was to undergo outpatient arthroscopic surgery on his shoulder at TOPS Surgical Specialty Hospital. About an hour and a half into the procedure, the nurse anesthetist attending him, Constance Cernosek, alerted the surgeon that she thought Mr. Alexander was not getting any oxygen into his right lung. The surgeon immediately withdrew his surgical instrument and turned Mr. Alexander over, discovering that his upper body and thighs had turned blue from oxygen deprivation. Mr. Alexander had no pulse and was in cardiac arrest. It was later determined that his brain had been deprived of an adequate supply of oxygen for at least ten and perhaps as many as fourteen minutes before his distress was recognized. Another ten minutes passed without adequate blood flow to his brain while resuscitation efforts were underway. At some point, Mr. Alexander's heart was restarted, but he remained comatose and died fourteen days later. An autopsy revealed that his death was due to brain damage caused by a lack of oxygen. One expert opined that Mark Alexander's brain was completely deprived of oxygen for nine to ten minutes.
The hospital had contracted with two professional associations to jointly operate and staff its anesthesia service. These professional associations were Carl J. Battaglia, M.D., P.A. and Tommy A. Polk, M.D., P.A., which we will refer to as Battaglia P.A. and Polk P.A. for brevity. The contract between the hospital and the professional associations provided that Battaglia and Polk, individually, would serve as anesthesiologists, although the contract contemplated that Battaglia P.A. and Polk P.A. would also furnish other physicians to serve as anesthesiologists. The professional associations retained LaVerta Jane Crowder, an anesthesiologist, on a part-time basis to work in the hospital's surgical arenas when either Battaglia or Polk was unavailable. Polk was n
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