Entrican v. Ming, et al.


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Docket Number: 2006-CA-00669-SCT

Supreme Court: Opinion Link
Opinion Date: 08-02-2007
Opinion Author: SMITH, C.J.
Holding: Reversed and Remanded

Additional Case Information: Topic: Wrongful death - Negligence - Proximate causation - Foreseeability
Judge(s) Concurring: WALLER AND DIAZ, P.JJ., EASLEY, CARLSON, DICKINSON, RANDOLPH AND LAMAR, JJ.
Non Participating Judge(s): GRAVES, J.
Procedural History: Jury Trial
Nature of the Case: CIVIL - WRONGFUL DEATH

Trial Court: Date of Trial Judgment: 02-09-2006
Appealed from: Hinds County Circuit Court
Judge: W. Swan Yerger
Disposition: Granted Appellee's Motion for Directed Verdict
Case Number: 251-00-98-CIV

  Party Name: Attorney Name:  
Appellant: MELISSA ENTRICAN




ALAN D. LANCASTER



 

Appellee: DOUG MING, JEREMY CAMPBELL AND HMA CORPORATION, INC. d/b/a RANKIN MEDICAL CENTER AMBULANCE SERVICES a/k/a REMS KIMBERLY NELSON HOWLAND  

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Topic: Wrongful death - Negligence - Proximate causation - Foreseeability

Summary of the Facts: Melissa Entrican filed suit against Doug Ming, Jeremy Campbell, and REMS (sometimes referred to hereinafter as “Ambulance Service Defendants”), along with Frank B. Briggs, M.D., Martha D. Dickens, M.D., Beverly McMillan, M.D., Karl Hatten, M.D., and River Oaks Hospital, alleging that the negligence of these parties caused or contributed to the death of her minor daughter, Alisha Peavy. By stipulation of the parties, River Oaks Hospital and its employee physicians, Dr. Dickens, Dr. McMillan, and Dr. Hatten, were dismissed from the suit with prejudice. At the close of Entrican’s case-in-chief, counsel for the Ambulance Service Defendants moved for a directed verdict. The judge granted the motion for a directed verdict, holding that the negligent omissions of Dr. Dickens in failing to recognize that Alisha was in hypovelemic shock, in failing to adequately resuscitate Alisha by giving blood and intravenous fluids, and/or in failing to transfer Alisha to another medical facility, were not foreseeable by the Ambulance Service Defendants when they decided to transport Alisha to River Oaks, the nearest hospital. He further concluded that the negligence of Dr. Dickens and/or other River Oaks employees was an intervening and superceding cause of Alisha’s death. Entrican appeals.

Summary of Opinion Analysis: The elements of a negligence suit are duty, breach of duty, causation, and injury. Under the Central Mississippi Emergency Medical Services Protocol Manual, it is evident that Ming, Campbell, and REMS owed a duty to provide care and treatment to Alisha. To prove the element of causation, both cause in fact and proximate cause must be shown. Proximate cause has been defined as cause which in natural and continuous sequence unbroken by any efficient intervening cause produces the injury and without which the result would not have occurred. It is clear by Dr. Dickens’s own admission that Dickens was negligent in not transfusing blood in this situation, as a trained ATLS physician who should have known and admittedly did know that such procedures were the accepted standard in the medical community. Furthermore, Dr. Hauser’s testimony made it clear that breaching the generally accepted medical standard for the treatment of hypovolemic shock, this action became a proximate cause of Alisha’s death. The Ambulance Service Defendants argue that, even assuming they were negligent in transporting Alisha to River Oaks, they escape liability because they could not have foreseen that Dr. Dickens would have deviated from the standard of care. The Second Restatement of Torts defines a superseding cause as an act of a third person or other force which by its intervention prevents the actor from being liable for harm to another which his antecedent negligence is a substantial factor in bringing about. Under this theory, an original actor’s negligence may be superceded by a subsequent actor’s negligence, if the subsequent negligence was unforeseeable. However, merely finding that the negligence of River Oaks, by and through Dr. Dickens, was an intervening cause in the chain of events leading from the Ambulance Service Defendants action in transporting Alisha to River Oaks to Alisha’s death is not sufficient to render the Ambulance Service Defendants’ earlier actions non-actionable. If the intervening cause is one which in ordinary human experience is reasonably to be anticipated, or one which the defendant has reason to anticipate under the particular circumstances, the subsequent actor’s negligence is foreseeable and does not break the chain of events between the negligence of the first actor and the injury. As such, under principles of foreseeability, a defendant may be held liable for his failure to anticipate an easily-predicted intervening cause and to properly guard against it. While the trial court ruled that the alleged negligence of the Ambulance Service Defendants in transporting Alisha to River Oaks rather than to another hospital could be only a remote cause of Alisha’s death, there is evidence in the record to support the arguments for both sides, thereby creating a question for the jury. Therefore, whether the Ambulance Service Defendants knew or should have known that River Oaks was not capable of managing Alisha’s condition and whether their alleged negligence, if any, in taking her to that hospital was only a remote, and thus not proximate, cause of her death, is a question to be determined by the jury. The case is remanded to the trial court to submit this issue to the jury.


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