Earl Watkins, Herbert Lester Davis and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., Etc. v. United States

589 F.2d 214, 1979 U.S. App. LEXIS 17062
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 7, 1979
Docket76-3608
StatusPublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 589 F.2d 214 (Earl Watkins, Herbert Lester Davis and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., Etc. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Earl Watkins, Herbert Lester Davis and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., Etc. v. United States, 589 F.2d 214, 1979 U.S. App. LEXIS 17062 (5th Cir. 1979).

Opinions

GOLDBERG, Circuit Judge:

This is an action under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

Airman James Richardson, though not a party to the suit, is the central character in this unhappy story. While on leave from his duty station in Turkey, Richardson, in the words of the trial judge, went “berserk.” He was admitted to the Redstone Arsenal Psychiatric Clinic in Alabama for several days of treatment and observation. The psychiatrists diagnosed Richardson’s disorder as “an acute and chronic situational reaction manifested by hysteria, anxiety, and depression.”

About a month after Richardson’s release from the Redstone Psychiatric Clinic, he returned to the Redstone Arsenal. This time he went to the Redstone Outpatient Clinic. There, Dr. Wald prescribed for him [216]*216100 5 m. g. tablets of Valium.1 Several days later, the plaintiffs-appellees, Earl Watkins and Lester Davis, were injured when Richardson drove his automobile into their car.

The plaintiffs-appellees brought this action against the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act. They alleged that the government was liable for their injuries because one of its employees, Dr. Wald, had caused the accident by negligently prescribing the Valium to Richardson.2 The trial court held for the plaintiffs-appellees. It found (1) that Dr. Wald acted negligently in prescribing the Valium to Richardson and (2) that this negligence was a proximate cause of the plaintiffs-appellees’ injuries. On appeal the government argues that the trial court erred in both these findings.

We begin our analysis by noting that in deciding the issues the government raises, we are bound by the standard of review set out in Rule 52 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. It provides that “findings of fact shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 52. With this standard in mind, we shall now consider the asserted errors raised by the government.

I.

The trial judge found that Dr. Wald acted negligently in prescribing such a large amount of Valium to Richardson without taking an adequate history or checking for records with the Redstone Psychiatric Clinic. The government claims that there is insufficient evidence to support this finding of negligence.

We disagree. First, the record shows that Dr. Wald prescribed an excessive amount of Valium.3 Dr. Wald, himself, testified that he did not generally write prescriptions for 100 tablets. The government theorized that the reason for the unusually large prescription may have been that Richardson was about to return to Turkey and would have been unable to receive treatment en route. A former flight surgeon, however, discounted the government’s explanation testifying that the time in transit between air bases is never very long and there are generally medical facilities available at the stopping points. In any event, under the directed dosage, the prescription supplied Richardson with enough Valium for fifty days. We cannot believe that Richardson would spend over seven weeks in transit.

Second, the record shows that Dr. Wald prescribed this large amount of Valium on the basis of a very incomplete knowledge of Richardson’s history and current condition. Since Dr. Wald did not remember treating Richardson, he could only testify to his standard procedures for taking a patient’s history and obtaining his records.

Dr. Wald testified that under the procedure at Redstone Outpatient Clinic an examining doctor would only be furnished with records of a patient’s prior visits to the outpatient clinic. He would not receive any records from the Redstone Psychiatric Clinic, nor would the patient’s records be flagged to indicate that he had visited the psychiatric clinic. Thus, since Richardson’s permanent medical records were at his duty station in Turkey and since he had not previously been to the Redstone Outpatient Clinic, we must assume that Dr. Wald was furnished with no records on Richardson.

From the prescription he gave, Dr. Wald concluded that Richardson had probably complained of insomnia or another condition indicating mild anxiety. Valium is an appropriate drug for treating these ail[217]*217ments. Dr. Wald stated that before prescribing Valium to a patient like Richardson — one he did not know and for whom he had, no records — he would take a patient history, but only as it related to the patient’s present complaint. He would then prescribe the Valium if, on the basis of the visit, the patient seemed to him to be mentally and emotionally stable.4

Dr. Wald testified that had he known that Richardson was suffering from depression and had recently been treated for psychiatric problems, he would certainly not have prescribed Valium. All the doctors who testified agreed that Valium should not be prescribed to such a patient since it would increase the patient’s depression. Dr. Corley, who qualified as an expert in medical practices in both the military and the Huntington, Alabama area, indicated that the practice of prescribing a large amount of Valium to an unknown patient without asking the patient if he had a history of mental problems and without checking for records with a psychiatric clinic on the same military installation fell below the standard of care in the medical community. A doctor’s treatment is negligent if it falls below that standard of care. See, e. g., Parrish v. Spink, 284 Ala. 263, 224 So.2d 621 (1969).

Dr. Wald did not as a general practice before prescribing Valium ask patients he did not know whether they had a history of mental problems. We cannot tell from Dr. Wald’s testimony whether, in taking a “history relative to Richardson’s present complaint,” he asked Richardson if he had ever had any mental problems. The trial judge evidently assumed that Dr. Wald did not ask Richardson this question. If Dr. Wald did not, he was negligent in prescribing the Valium because he failed to take an adequate history. For the purposes of this opinion, we will assume that Dr. Wald did ask Richardson about his mental health. Even under this assumption, Dr. Wald was still negligent because he failed to verify Richardson’s answers by checking for records with the Redstone Psychiatric Clinic.

Given Dr. Wald’s practices and Dr. Cor-ley’s testimony, there was sufficient evidence in the record for the trial judge to find that Dr. Wald acted negligently. We certainly cannot hold this finding clearly erroneous.

In deciding this case we express no opinion about whether Dr. Wald would have been negligent had he prescribed a smaller amount of Valium on the basis of the history he took and procedures he followed; nor do we decide whether Dr. Wald’s large prescription would have been acceptable if he had taken an adequate history and checked the files at the Redstone Psychiatric Clinic. But it seems clear to us that by prescribing such a large amount of Valium to Richardson without even telephoning to the psychiatric clinic on the same base, Dr. Wald impermissibly increased the danger that Richardson would harm others. A Fortiori then, if Dr. Wald did not even question Richardson about his mental health, he certainly impermissibly increased this danger.

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Bluebook (online)
589 F.2d 214, 1979 U.S. App. LEXIS 17062, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/earl-watkins-herbert-lester-davis-and-state-farm-mutual-automobile-ca5-1979.