Shutze v. Pace

557 So. 2d 776, 1990 Miss. LEXIS 16, 1990 WL 6749
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 17, 1990
DocketNo. 07-58693
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 557 So. 2d 776 (Shutze v. Pace) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Shutze v. Pace, 557 So. 2d 776, 1990 Miss. LEXIS 16, 1990 WL 6749 (Mich. 1990).

Opinion

HAWKINS, Presiding Justice,

for the Court:

Michael Scott Shutze, minor plaintiff, appeals from a summary judgment dismissal of his malpractice action against William L. Pace, M.D., because barred by the two-year limitation imposed by Miss.Code Ann. § 15-1-36 (Supp.1984). For the reasons stated we affirm.

FACTS

Judith Yearwood was admitted to Methodist Hospital in Hattiesburg with complaints of pelvic pain. She was 36 years old and the mother of Michael Scott Shutze, the minor plaintiff. On June 25, 1984, she was taken to an operating room at Methodist Hospital where she was placed under general anesthesia and William L. Pace, M.D., was to perform a laparoscopic examination and bilateral tubal ligation. After placing her under general anesthesia, an incision was made in her abdomen and a small scope was inserted allowing Dr. Pace to look inside. A bilateral tubal ligation is the tying of the fallopian tubes. In the operating room with Dr. Pace were two nurses and a technician. Nurse Phillip Davenport administered anesthesia. Nurse Sheila Cave was the circulating nurse when the operation began. Early in the operation, she was replaced by Nurse Faye Smith. The duties of the circulating nurse are to assist with anesthesia, position the patient, hook up the EKG, monitor and do various other duties to assist in the operating room. Katrina Broom, a surgical technician assisted Dr. Pace by handing him instruments and materials as needed during the procedure.

Four records were to be prepared as a result of the operation itself: Dr. Pace’s Progress Note, his Report of Operation, an Anesthesia Record prepared by Nurse Davenport and finally the nurse’s Operative [777]*777Record. The nurse’s operative record is prepared and signed by the circulating nurse. On it she includes her “observations and comments” about the operation. Once a medical record is completed, there is only one ethical and accepted method of making a change in the record. That is by drawing a line through the information to be changed and inserting the new information.

During the surgery, Ms. Yearwood’s pulse and pressure dropped and at approximately 12:25 p.m., she had no palpable pulse or blood pressure. Although resusci-tative efforts were begun, Ms. Yearwood’s brain was denied oxygen for a period of time and she suffered irreversible brain damage and was left in a coma. She never regained consciousness. The nurse’s observations of and comments about that surgery were recorded on the nurse’s operative record.

Between June 25, 1984, and June 28, 1984, Ms. Yearwood continued in a coma. Some time on June 28, 1984, another nurse, while moving Judith Yearwood to prepare her for an x-ray, negligently caused the nasotracheal tube carrying oxygen to Ms. Yearwood’s lungs to be pulled out of the trachea and then to be pushed into Ms. Yearwood’s esophagus, thus again denying Ms. Yearwood an adequate supply of oxygen. As a result, Ms. Yearwood’s brain suffered further injury. Because of the combined effect of the brain damage on June 25 and June 29, Ms. Yearwood had no evidence of brain activity and life support measures were disconnected and she died.

As required by the written standard of Methodist Hospital and the Joint Committee on Accreditation of Hospitals, the medical records of Judith Yearwood were ultimately to be collected into one place under specific guidelines and in an approved format. In this case, the records were supposedly collected and each page was supposedly numbered to make sure that every record was accounted for since it was anticipated that the records might be used in a legal proceeding. *

Subsequently, a lawsuit was filed by the plaintiff in this action against Nurse Davenport, Methodist Hospital and Dr. Pace.

As is customary in medical malpractice cases, the plaintiff’s attorneys requested and received a certified copy of the medical records relating to the treatment of Ms. Yearwood at Methodist Hospital from June 18, 1984, to the date of her death on June 29, 1984. Those medical records were certified as true and correct by Methodist Hospital. At each deposition of each physician, including Dr. Pace, a certified, num-1 ber copy of the medical records was present and referred to by all parties.

Rather than relying only on the certification of Methodist Hospital, interrogatories and requests for production were propounded to Dr. Pace in which he was requested to produce all records, notes et al from the hospitalization. In his responses, he affirmed that the certified copy of the medical records from Methodist Hospital were as follows:'

REQUEST FOR PRODUCTION NO. 4: All records, reports, nurse's notes, summaries, histories, x-rays and other tangible documents and things regarding any treatment or examination of Yearwood on or after June 18, 1984.
RESPONSE: See response to Request for Production No. 1.
REQUEST FOR PRODUCTION NO. 4: All documents, diaries and calendars kept by you, or by anyone on your behalf, to record any of the events regarding Yearwood which are relevant to this lawsuit.
RESPONSE: See response No. 1.
REQUEST FOR PRODUCTION NO. 4: All documents prepared during the operation, or as a result of any information obtained during the operation, including but not limited to logs, notes, graphs, tapes, photographs, videotapes and reports.
RESPONSE: Other than the records of Methodist Hospital, such additional information is not known to this Defendant.

Response to Request for Production No. 1 stated the following:

[778]*778RESPONSE: ... it is assumed that the Plaintiff has copies of all the depositions referred to and the medical records of the Methodist Hospital.

By obtaining a certified copy of the medical records and referring to them in depositions and through use of requests for production nos. 1, 4, 7 and 10, Dr. Pace plainly represented that the certified copy of the medical records were true and complete, at least to his knowledge. Dr. Pace even added in response to request for production no. 10 that other than the records of Methodist Hospital, “SUCH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION IS NOT KNOWN TO THIS DEFENDANT.’’

Perhaps, this is an appropriate point at which to mention briefly the problem which plaintiff was not aware of — the responses to requests for production were not correct because the nurse’s Operative Record was not the original record.

At approximately 3:00 p.m. on the day of the surgery, Dr. Pace called Dr. Katherine Aldridge an anesthesiologist practicing in Hattiesburg, and described the situation to her.

That afternoon, Dr. Aldridge came to the Methodist Hospital and reviewed the records. She noted that the nurse’s operative record showed an “apparent cardiac arrest.” Dr. Aldridge took the record and showed it to Dr. Pace on the afternoon of June 25 and specifically pointed out that the record showed an “apparent cardiac arrest.”

The next day, Nurse Smith and Nurse Cave went to work at the hospital. That morning, Dr. Pace saw Nurse Cave in the hallway and told her that there had been an error in the charting and that it needed to be changed. Dr.

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Bluebook (online)
557 So. 2d 776, 1990 Miss. LEXIS 16, 1990 WL 6749, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/shutze-v-pace-miss-1990.