Mitchell v. Robinson

334 S.W.2d 11, 79 A.L.R. 2d 1017, 1960 Mo. LEXIS 782
Supreme Court of Missouri·Decided April 11, 1960·No. 47460·Published·Cited by 39 cases

Opinion

BARRETT, Commissioner.

William Mitchell has been awarded $15,-000 damages against the Doctors Robinson and their associates, particularly Dr. Jack DeMott, for malpractice, and the essentially meritorious problem is whether upon «■the record there is any evidence to support I the jury’s finding of negligence.

Mitchell and Dr. DeMott were boyhood schoolmates in Independence, Kansas, attended Kansas University at the same time, and were both living in Independence when Dr. DeMott began the practice of medicine there. So when in 1951, at age 35, Mitchell was beset with serious emotional problems he sought out Dr. DeMott who was then a specialist in neurology and psychiatry and was then associated with the Doctors Robinson and the Neurological Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. Mitchell had “a rather severe emotional illness,” process schizophrenia, but he was not mentally incompetent; his illness was characterized by serious depression and rather severe anxiety, complicated by alcoholism. It is not necessary at this point to detail his case history and symptoms; it was the opinion of the doctors that he should have “combined electro-shock and insulin sub-coma therapy.” The general purpose of electroshock treatment is to build up the patient’s “defenses and controls and self-confidence” while insulin relieves “basic anxiety” and “disturbance of the mood.” The desired physical reaction and intended purpose of electroshock is to induce convulsive seizures of forty to fifty seconds duration. The desired physical reaction of insulin shock is the induction of unconsciousness, a “subcoma” state, but it is neither intended nor desired, as it is with electroshock, that the patient suffer a convulsion. One of the unpredictable results of insulin shock, however, is an unpreventable convulsion and one of the hazards of convulsions, whether from insulin or electroshock, is fractured vertebrae, fractured legs and various other injuries.

On October 25, 1951, Mitchell had his first electroshock treatment, the next day another, and, after two days’ rest, his first insulin shock October 28 and the next day another, and on the 30th his third electroshock and on the 31st another insulin treatment. There were convulsions with the electroshock treatments but no untoward results; the insulin treatments came off with normal results and reactions except that on the 31st Mitchell suffered a convulsion and that particular treatment was successfully terminated by an intravenous injection of glucose. Insulin treatment, reduced to 25 units, was resumed November 2, but Mitchell went out for a walk and came in drunk and the treatments were “started over” again on November 4 with 25 units, increased to 40 units November 5 and on November 7, with his seventh insulin treatment of 40 units, he had “a hard generalized con *13 vulsion,” a grand mal seizure, which -re-^ suited in a compression fracture of thej fifth, sixth and seventh dorsal vertebrae.' It is to recover damages for these specific injuries that Mitchell instituted this action.

These briefly noted facts are excerpted as background for certain basic distinctions in this and other malpractice cases and eventually to point up the problem precisely involved upon this appeal. The appellant doctors, relying on the general rules (Williams v. Chamberlain, Mo., 316 S.W.2d 505), contend that their motions for a directed verdict should have been sustained because “There was no expert testimony to show that the insulin therapy administered to Mitchell failed to conform to the required standards of an ordinarily careful and prudent neurologist or psychiatrist in the community,” indeed, the greater part of their brief is devoted to this subject. This phase of the appellants’ argument has but little, if any, bearing upon the basic problem involved here; it may he that they could not anticipate just what position the plaintiff would take. But the plaintiff has made it perfectly clear that there is no claim of negligence in any of these general respects; in his brief he repeatedly disclaims any such reliance: “Under point 1(a) appellants say there was no expert testimony to show that the insulin therapy administered to Mitchell failed to conform to the required standards. That is not the complaint. * * * Plaintiff does not question the technique of administering the insulin, nor does he deny that it should have been administered. * * * There (Steele v. Woods, (Mo.) 327 S.W.2d 187), ■as here, there was no complaint that the -operation was not recommended by good medical practice and was not competently done.” Furthermore, there is no question here as to the plaintiff’s consent to the treatment (annotation 139 A.L.R. 1370) or claim that the procedure extended beyond that contemplated by the consent. Annotation 56 A.L.R.2d 695. Again the plaintiff disclaims: “Indeed, he consented to that. * * * Mitchell had already given his oral consent.”

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Mitchell v. Robinson, 334 S.W.2d 11, 79 A.L.R. 2d 1017, 1960 Mo. LEXIS 782 (Mo. 1960).

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