| Wolfe v St. Clare's Hosp. of Schenectady |
| 2008 NY Slip Op 09675 [57 AD3d 1124] |
| December 11, 2008 |
| Appellate Division, Third Department |
| mJennifer Wolfe et al., Appellants, v St. Clare's Hospital of Schenectady,Doing Business as St. Clare's Hospital, et al., Respondents. |
—[*1] Thuillez, Ford, Gold, Butler & Young, Albany (Debra J. Young of counsel), forrespondents.
Carpinello, J. Appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court (Reilly, J.), entered August 9, 2007 inSchenectady County, upon a verdict rendered in favor of defendants.
Upon cutting the palm of her right hand on broken glass, plaintiff Jennifer Wolfe (hereinafterplaintiff) sought treatment in the emergency department of defendant St. Clare's Hospital and wastreated by emergency room physician defendant Michael J. Reilly. A five-centimeter laceration wasnoted and repaired. No tendon damage was detected. Following complaints of pain, an inability to flexher thumb and occupational therapy, she saw a hand surgeon approximately four months later.Exploratory surgery revealed that she had completely severed a tendon. The passage of time preventedits surgical repair.
This medical malpractice action ensued. The matter proceeded to a jury trial and two theories ofnegligence were asserted against Reilly, namely, that he failed to perform a proper physical examinationon plaintiff and that he failed to refer her to a hand surgeon. At the close of proof, plaintiffsunsuccessfully moved for a directed verdict on the issue of liability pursuant to CPLR 4401. The jurythereafter returned a verdict in favor of defendants. Plaintiffs' posttrial [*2]motion for a directed verdict, a judgment notwithstanding the verdict and,alternatively, to set the verdict aside as against the weight of the evidence was denied. This appealensued.
At trial, plaintiffs presented expert proof that Reilly deviated from accepted medical standards inboth his physical examination of plaintiff and his failure to refer her to a hand surgeon. This proof wasbased in large degree on two disputed factual issues, namely, the precise location of the initial lacerationand plaintiff's ability—or lack thereof—to flex her thumb while in the emergency room. Asto the location of the laceration, plaintiffs attempted to establish that it extended above the joint suchthat it would have been in Reilly's field of vision upon physical exploration and examination. Withrespect to the mobility of the thumb, plaintiff testified that Reilly never asked her to bend it and neverperformed any tests "of any kind" on it before suturing it. While she acknowledged that a resistance testwas performed, she claimed that it was not done until after her thumb was sutured and further claimedthat she was unable to perform the test, that is, she was unable push it as requested.
Defendants countered such evidence with their own factual and expert proof. Reilly testified that hetested the tendon by testing the strength of the injured thumb against resistance and documented that ithad good strength. Moreover, according to Reilly and confirmed by a nurse's notation on her medicalchart, plaintiff was able to move her thumb while in the emergency department. Reilly further testifiedthat he cleaned the wound and then described his customary practice in determining whether a tendoninjury had occurred, that is, to retract both sides of the wound and ask that the digit be moved. Withrespect to plaintiff, no evidence of a tendon wound was noted by Reilly. Because of same, according toReilly, he found no need to refer her to a specialist but instead determined that follow-up with herprimary care physician was sufficient.
While plaintiff did in fact have a tendon injury, the jury heard evidence that an emergency roomphysician could perform an adequate physical examination on a patient and still miss a tendon lacerationdepending on its size and/or precise location.In other words, according to defendants' proof, a partial tendon injury can be out of the limited field ofexploration of the examiner and thus undetectable. Indeed, as to plaintiff's injury, defendants submittedproof establishing that the laceration was on the palm of her hand near the base of the thumb below thejoint, but the injury to the tendon was above the joint such that it would have been outside Reilly's fieldof vision upon exploration. In addition, according to Reilly, a partial tendon injury can later rupturecausing loss of movement of the involved digit. To this end, medical records from plaintiff's treatinghand surgeon document a progressive inability to flex her thumb over a four-to-six-weekperiod. Indeed, a board-certified emergency medicine physician testified that neither Reilly's physicalexamination of plaintiff nor his failure to refer her to a hand surgeon deviated from accepted standardsof care.
As there was sufficient conflicting factual and expert proof presented at trial, plaintiffs' motions for adirected verdict and a judgment notwithstanding the verdict were each properly denied (seeCPLR 4401, 4404 [a]). In short, according defendants every favorable inference from the evidence,there was indeed a rational process by which the jury could find in their favor such that plaintiffs' motionfor a directed verdict was properly denied (see Szczerbiak v Pilat, 90 NY2d 553, 556[1997]). In addition, we find the evidence sufficient to establish a valid line of reasoning and rationalprocess by which this jury could have determined that Reilly was not negligent under either theoryasserted such that plaintiffs' request for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict was also properly denied(see Cohen v Hallmark Cards, 45 NY2d 493, 499 [1978]). [*3]Finally, with respect to plaintiffs' challenge to the verdict as being againstthe weight of the evidence, we are unable to conclude that the evidence preponderated so greatly intheir favor that the jury could not have reached its conclusion on any fair interpretation of it (seeLolik v Big V Supermarkets, 86 NY2d 744, 746 [1995]). Accordingly, this aspect of their motionwas likewise properly denied.
Cardona, P.J., Peters, Kavanagh and Stein, JJ., concur. Ordered that the judgment is affirmed,with costs.