University Medical Center, Inc. v. Beglin

375 S.W.3d 783, 2011 WL 5248303, 2011 Ky. LEXIS 162
CourtKentucky Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 27, 2011
DocketNos. 2009-SC-000289-DG, 2009-SC-000839-DG
StatusPublished
Cited by31 cases

This text of 375 S.W.3d 783 (University Medical Center, Inc. v. Beglin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Kentucky Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
University Medical Center, Inc. v. Beglin, 375 S.W.3d 783, 2011 WL 5248303, 2011 Ky. LEXIS 162 (Ky. 2011).

Opinions

Opinion of the Court by

Justice VENTERS.

We granted discretionary review in this matter to examine when it is proper for the trial court to give a missing evidence instruction, and whether it was permissible here to hold an employer liable for punitive damages based upon the gross negligence of an employee. University Medical Center, Inc. d/b/a University of Louisville Hospital (“University Hospital”), appeals from an opinion of the Court of Appeals which affirmed a judgment entered by the Jefferson Circuit Court in favor of Appel-lee, Michael G. Beglin.1 Based upon a jury verdict, the trial court entered judgment awarding the following compensatory damages: $1,922,102.00 for the destruction of Jennifer Beglin’s power to labor and earn money; $367,358.09 for her medical expenses; $7,543.00 for her funeral and burial expenses; and $3,000,000.00 for her children’s loss of parental consortium. The jury also awarded $3,750,000.00 in punitive damages, resulting in a total award of $9,047,003.09.

The damages were based upon a finding of the jury that the hospital, through its employees and agents, acted negligently in [786]*786causing the death of Jennifer Beglin.2 Co-defendants, Dr. Susan Galandiuk (the surgeon) and Dr. Guy M. Lerner (the anesthesiologist), were found not liable by the jury.

University Hospital3 presents the following three issues: (1) the trial court erred by giving a missing evidence instruction; (2) the trial court erred by giving a punitive damages instruction; and (3) the giving of the missing evidence and punitive damages instructions violated its due process rights. For the reasons stated below, we determine that the trial court properly gave a missing evidence instruction, and we affirm the judgment awarding compensatory damages. However, we hold that the trial court erred in giving a punitive damages instruction under the circumstances of this case. We therefore reverse the punitive damages award and remand for entry of a new judgment. By these determinations, University Hospital’s due process arguments relating to punitive damages are moot, and it is not otherwise entitled to relief under these claims.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Considering the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, the essential facts are as follows. During surgery at University Hospital, Beglin’s wife, Jennifer, suffered unexpected and substantial blood loss. Because of an unreasonable delay in obtaining blood from the hospital blood bank, she sustained an anoxic brain injury caused by the lack of oxygen-carrying blood, leaving her in a permanent vegetative state. She passed away on October 9, 2003, after life support was withdrawn by her family.

Evidence indicated that when the surgeons recognized that a blood transfusion was vital, they ordered a blood sample to be drawn and taken to the hospital blood bank to ascertain Jennifer's blood type, and requested that the blood needed for the transfusion be ordered. Nurse Cant-rall,4 an employee of University Hospital on duty to assist the Beglin surgery, was charged with the responsibility of ordering the blood. Ordinarily that process would take forty-five to fifty minutes. In a dire emergency, universal donor blood could be obtained from the blood bank in ten minutes. The evidence established that, unbeknownst to the surgeons, twenty-five minutes elapsed before Cantrall transmitted the order for blood to the blood bank. As Jennifer’s blood loss continued, her need for a blood transfusion became desperate and immediate. Surgeons and staff in the operating room, including Cantrall, began frantic efforts to obtain the blood.5 By the time the blood arrived, sixty-seven to seventy minutes had lapsed from when the surgeons first ordered it.

From the verdict, it appears that the jury believed that University Hospital, through its employees, Cantrall and the blood bank, acted with gross negligence in the failure to timely deliver the necessary blood, and thereby caused Jennifer’s death.

One of the standardized forms used by University Hospital is captioned “occur[787]*787rence report.” It is to be used by employees in the ordinary course of business when significant events occur to document their experience and observations for subsequent review by the hospital’s risk management staff in assessing legal liability issues. Pursuant to the hospital’s policies, the reports are highly confidential and are not placed in patient files. The reports are initially filed with, and are routed through, the Risk Management Department. Therefore, given the importance and high level of confidentiality of the documents, it is a reasonable inference to conclude that the reports are, in the normal course of business, carefully preserved.

At her pre-trial deposition, Cantrall testified to her belief that she had not prepared an occurrence report, but if she had prepared one she would have included a chronology and her perception of the significant events that occurred during surgery. However, at trial Cantrall testified that following Jennifer’s surgery she did complete an occurrence report form at the direction of Charge Nurse Elaine Strong, and placed it as required in the front desk bin for distribution. She further testified that the only information she believed she had recorded on the report is that CPR had been performed in the operating room, and that she included nothing about the time taken to obtain the blood from the blood bank. Strong denied asking Cant-rall to prepare a report and denied ever seeing Cantrall’s occurrence report. No one else testified to having any knowledge of the report’s existence or content.

II. THE MISSING EVIDENCE INSTRUCTION WAS PROPERLY GIVEN

University Hospital first argues that the trial court erred by giving the missing evidence instruction in connection with the unexplained disappearance of the occurrence report that Cantrall testified she prepared immediately following the operation pursuant to normal hospital procedures. Although University Hospital had exclusive care, custody, and control of the report (if it existed), it is unable to offer any explanation to account for its disappearance. University Hospital contends that it was fundamentally improper and contrary to Kentucky law for the trial court to give the missing evidence instruction when there was no evidence to show that it had intentionally and in bad faith lost or destroyed the document. It further argues that the instruction improperly influenced both the general verdict of liability and the punitive damages award by insinuating that the hospital covered-up adverse evidence. For the reasons stated below, we conclude that the instruction was properly given.

The Missing Evidence Instruction

Following the form approved in Sanborn v. Commonwealth, 754 S.W.2d 534, 539-540 (Ky.1988), overruled on other grounds by Hudson v. Commonwealth, 202 S.W.3d 17 (Ky.2006), the trial court gave, over the hospital’s objection, this missing evidence instruction:

If you find from the evidence that an incident report was in fact prepared by Nurse Barbara Cantrell recording material information about Mrs.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
375 S.W.3d 783, 2011 WL 5248303, 2011 Ky. LEXIS 162, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/university-medical-center-inc-v-beglin-ky-2011.