Webb v. Jorns

530 S.W.2d 847, 1975 Tex. App. LEXIS 3116
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 10, 1975
Docket17615
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 530 S.W.2d 847 (Webb v. Jorns) 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
Webb v. Jorns, 530 S.W.2d 847, 1975 Tex. App. LEXIS 3116 (Tex. Ct. App. 1975).

Opinions

OPINION

MASSEY, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal by plaintiffs in a malpractice suit for wrongful death from a take nothing judgment based upon jury verdict in favor of the defendant doctors, anesthetist and hospital.

We affirm.

The case has previous appellate history. See Webb v. Jorns, 473 S.W.2d 328 (Fort Worth, Tex.Civ.App., 1971, reversed at 488 S.W.2d 407). By the Supreme Court, in 1972, there was remand to the trial court. The instant appeal is from retrial. On the prior appeal this Court agreed that the trial court’s directed verdict was correct in that by the plaintiffs’ evidence no prima facie case had been proved; with which conclusion the Supreme Court disagreed and held that the case should be submitted to a jury for decision.

October 7, 1966, the plaintiffs’ decedent, Mrs. Ella J. Webb, was in the operating room and on the operating table (at the premises of defendant Doctors General Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas) receiving the anesthetic preparatory to intended surgical operation to repair a diaphragmatic hernia. Approximately thirteen minutes after the time when the anesthetic was begun to be administered by the defendant Irys Eakin, anesthetist, it was discovered that Mrs. Webb was cyanotic and that a cardiac arrest had occurred. In other words it was discovered that Mrs. Webb’s heart had stopped functioning in that there was no heartbeat. The doctors, defendants Eugene Olcott and Kenneth L. Jorns, attempted resuscitation. The attempt failed and there was no reversal of the cardiac arrest. The patient was pronounced dead. The material issues were upon the cause(s) of Mrs. Webb’s cardiac failure and/or upon delay, if any, in its discovery, and/or impropriety or insufficiency in resuscitation efforts.

Dr. Jorns had been the attending physician prior to the time of Mrs. Webb’s decision to undergo surgery. Dr. Jorns arranged with Dr. Olcott to perform the surgery, he to act as assistant. Thus the presence of these two doctors in the operating room on the material occasion and their efforts at resuscitation when Mrs. Webb’s cardiac arrest occurred. Operative procedure, other than for preparatory measures and the administering of the anesthetic, never was begun.

Plaintiffs sought recovery upon theories, as follows: 1. negligence on the part of Dr. Olcott before there was decision to resort to surgery and preparations therefor made in the area of failure to obtain informed consent for the surgery (including anesthesia) with full disclosure of hazards necessarily incident, coupled with actual culpable conduct in representations upon the necessity for surgery; 2. failures on the part of Doctors General Hospital to have an adequate training program for procedures necessarily incident to the administering of anesthesia, and to have an adequate electrocardiograph machine available for immediate use incident thereto and to surgical procedures; 3. negligence on the part of Mrs. Eakin relative to the failure to act as circumstances [851]*851required in the preparation for administering and actual giving of the anesthetic, and/or negligence in the form and movements of the action she did take; 4. negligence on the part of both Dr. Olcott and Dr. Jorns, and/or either of them, in connection with negligent failure to use an electrocardiograph machine for diagnosis, to administer certain medicines or drugs, to check the patient, to properly place esophageal stethoscope, to continue resuscitation efforts, and to administer internal heart massage.

The jury found against the plaintiffs on all the liability issues, or sets thereof, or rather it might more properly be said that the jury refused to find for the plaintiffs on their issues.

The same is true as applied to the damage issues. On all of them the jury found zero dollars and cents to represent the loss occasioned by her death to her husband, her children, and her parents, all of whom had joined as plaintiffs in the case. From the record we have concluded that most of these answers constituted error. (Points of error 70-75, incl.) The error by the answers would not constitute reversible error if there was not reversible error in the jury findings upon liability. Here there was failure or refusal by the jury to find the fact of any defendant’s negligence, and, where for purpose of inquiry a failure on the part of any defendant was assumed and the questions asked either as to negligence or proximate cause the jury refused to find that such constituted negligence or a proximate cause of Mrs. Webb’s death (or cardiac arrest). Such liability findings (or refusals to find for the plaintiffs) are attacked in two ways. In most instances plaintiffs contend that the state of the evidence in the record is such that as a matter of law the contrary of the answers returned by the jury was compelled; in all instances their contention is that the answers were so contrary to the great weight and preponderance of the evidence as to be clearly wrong. We have examined the record and hold the attack made upon the jury’s verdict under either contention to be without merit.

We list the material inquiries made by special issues in the court’s charge, with the numbers of the special issues of importance indicated by parentheses.

On Dr. Olcott: Did he (1) fail to advise Mrs. Webb of the risk of fatality in connection with proposed surgery and anesthetic procedures; (4) fail to advise her of the radiologists’ interpretation of the X-rays taken, as reflected by the X-ray reports in the hospital records; (10) fail to advise that her symptoms, if any, related to a diaphragmatic hernia, if any, could be treated medically with appropriate drugs, and that the suggested hernia surgery was recommended solely on her election to have the surgery if her symptoms were in her opinion “sufficient” that she did not want to live with them. Further, the jury refused to find that (7) Dr. Olcott advised Mrs. Webb that if she did not submit to surgery she might choke or strangle to death. Further, the jury found that (11) Mrs. Webb was suffering from a large diaphragmatic hernia, and (11-A) that Dr. Olcott’s statement that she was suffering from such a condition was true.

On Doctors General Hospital: The jury refused to find (16) that the hospital failed to have an adequate training program of operating room personnel and staff physicians permitted to perform surgery, and to train them in standard procedures in the event a patient should suffer respiratory or cardiac problems during anesthetic procedures or surgery. The jury refused to find that (19) the hospital failed to have an electrocardiograph machine available for immediate use in the operating room in the event of cardiac problems.

General: The jury refused to find (45) that the respiratory or cardiac problems, or both, experienced by Mrs. Webb in the operating room was a direct or proximate result of an overdose of anesthetic agents.

On Drs. Olcott and Jorns (either and both) upon surgical preparation for operative procedure up to and after time of Mrs. [852]

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Webb v. Jorns
530 S.W.2d 847 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1975)

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Bluebook (online)
530 S.W.2d 847, 1975 Tex. App. LEXIS 3116, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/webb-v-jorns-texapp-1975.