Duff v. Yelin

721 S.W.2d 365, 1986 Tex. App. LEXIS 8438
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedAugust 28, 1986
Docket01-85-0536-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 721 S.W.2d 365 (Duff v. Yelin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Duff v. Yelin, 721 S.W.2d 365, 1986 Tex. App. LEXIS 8438 (Tex. Ct. App. 1986).

Opinions

OPINION

Before EVANS, C.J., and DUNN and HOYT, JJ.

DUNN, Justice.

Appeal is taken from the trial court’s judgment that appellant take nothing against Dr. Yelin and St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in this medical malpractice action.

On November 7, 1977, appellant was admitted to St. Luke’s complaining of pain in his left shoulder and arm. A cervical lami-notomy and foraminotomy (neck surgery) was performed on appellant by Dr. Frank Yelin, a neurosurgeon, on November 10,

1977. Hospital records reflect that, on November 14, appellant complained of numbness and tingling in his right hand. Appellant was dismissed from St. Luke’s on November 17, but continued to see Dr. Yelin for treatment of the right ulnar nerve. Damage to this nerve causes numbness and tingling of the affected hand. On December 5, 1977, appellant was admitted to Methodist Hospital for decompression of an ulnar nerve neuropathy (elbow surgery), also performed by Dr. Yelin. This operation was intended to relieve the numbness and tingling in appellant’s right hand. Dr. Yelin last saw appellant on February 28,

1978, and his records reflect that appellant was steadily improving from the surgery performed on December 5, 1977.

Appellant filed suit on November 9,1979, against Dr. Yelin, J. Freeman, Mahmud Ali, M.D., and St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital. Freeman and Ali are, respectively, a student nurse in anesthesiology and an anesthesiologist. In his pleadings, appellant alleged that his surgery was unnecessary, and that the defendants were negligent in failing to properly pad and protect him from injury to his ulnar nerve during the first surgery on November 10, 1977. Appellant also alleged that Dr. Yelin was negligent in performing the surgery, and that he failed to obtain appellant’s informed consent.

Trial began on January 22, 1985. Appellant and his wife testified regarding his pain, disability, and mental anguish resulting from the damage to his right ulnar nerve. Appellant and his wife stated that he had first complained of numbness and tingling in his right hand when he regained consciousness after the neck surgery on November 10, although the hospital records do not reflect that appellant complained of any such discomfort until November 14, four days later. Appellant testified at trial that, “at the time it seemed like my whole hand was asleep,” but that he later realized the discomfort was limited to his ring and little fingers.

Appellant also presented portions of the deposition of Dr. Mahmud Ali, the anesthesiologist present during the November 10 surgery, and called Dr. Yelin as an adverse witness. Appellant presented no independent expert testimony.

At the close of appellant’s case, both St. Luke’s and Dr. Yelin moved for an instructed verdict. The trial court granted the motion as to St. Luke’s on all grounds, and for Dr. Yelin on all issues except that of appellant’s informed consent to both surgical procedures. In answer to special issues, the jury found that Dr. Yelin did not fail to disclose such risks and hazards as would have influenced a reasonable person in making a decision whether to consent to the neck surgery, but that Dr. Yelin did fail to disclose alternatives to surgical treatment which could have influenced a reasonable person in making a decision as to whether to undergo the elbow surgery. However, the jury determined that appellant would have submitted to the procedure [368]*368even had he been informed of all alternative procedures, and further found that appellant suffered no damages resulting from any of the occurrences.

Based on the evidence and the jury’s answers to special issues, the trial court rendered judgment that appellant take nothing against Dr. Yelin or St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital.

In appellant’s first point of error, he contends that the trial court erred in granting St. Luke’s motion for instructed verdict because there was some evidence of probative force that the hospital personnel negligently caused his right ulnar nerve injury during or following the neck surgery performed on November 10, 1977, while he was under the influence of anesthetics.

Specifically, appellant claims that there was evidence before the trial court demonstrating that such injury occurs where there is a (1) failure to properly position and pad the elbow area prior to surgery, (2) failure to avoid trauma or pressure on the nerve while the patient is being moved while under anesthetics, (3) failure to maintain the arm in proper position during surgery, or (4) permitting the patient’s arm to sustain pressure or trauma while on a gurney in the recovery room; and there being evidence that this is a “very rare injury” and one which is ordinarily avoided if the proper care is maintained in handling the anesthetized patient.

St. Luke’s motion for instructed verdict asserted, among other things, that there was no evidence of a breach of the standard of care in surgery, the recovery room, or in appellant’s hospital room. We agree.

The facts of this case are similar to those of Pekar v. St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, 570 S.W.2d 147 (Tex.Civ.App. — Waco 1978, writ ref’d n.r.e.). The plaintiff in Pekar suffered an injury to his shoulder blade while hospitalized for unrelated surgery, and speculated that, while under the influence of anesthesia, he had been dropped or mishandled either during the surgery or during the removals to the recovery room or his hospital room, or that he may have been mispositioned on the operating room table. As in the present case, the plaintiff in Pekar offered no evidence that any of the suggésted acts, or failures to act, occurred. The appellate court held that, while the trial court’s granting of an instructed verdict for the defendants required the review of all evidence favorable to the plaintiff and all reasonable inferences therefrom, “[njevertheless, an inference cannot rest on an inferred fact; a presumption cannot rest on a fact presumed; and facts upon which an inference may rest must be established by direct evidence.” Id. at 150.

Here, appellant failed to offer any evidence of negligence by St. Luke’s personnel. Both he and his wife testified that nothing untoward occurred while he was being transported to surgery and back, or after he awoke in the recovery room. Appellant was awake in the recovery room for approximately one hour before being taken to his hospital room. He stated that he thought he “certainly would have known if anything had been done by any of the nurses to cause this injury,” and that he did not notice any problem with his right hand when he awoke in the recovery room.

Dr. Yelin testified that this statement by appellant would lead him to rule out the recovery room as a scene for the ulnar nerve injury to have taken place, and that, based on a reasonable degree of medical probability, he would expect a patient such as appellant to discover the ulnar nerve injury upon awakening from the anesthesia and becoming alert.

Appellant testified that the nurses in his hospital room made notes on his condition about every hour or so, and specifically, that they recorded complaints of his neck pain. He concedes that there was nothing in the nurses’ notes, made the first day after his surgery, regarding his complaint of numbness in his right hand.

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Duff v. Yelin
721 S.W.2d 365 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1986)

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Bluebook (online)
721 S.W.2d 365, 1986 Tex. App. LEXIS 8438, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/duff-v-yelin-texapp-1986.