58 Ga. App. 104 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1938
The sole question for determination in this case is whether the court erred in sustaining a general demurrer to the
“Relatively to the law of pleading, a cause of action is some particular legal duty of the defendant to the plaintiff, together with some definite breach of that duty which occasions loss or damage.” Ellison v. Ga. R. Co., 87 Ga. 691, 699 (13 S. E. 809). A hospital conducted for private gain owes its patients the duty of exercising in their behalf “such reasonable care and attention for their safety as their mental and physical condition if known may require.” 13 R. C. L., 949, § 13, and notes. See also 22 A. L. R. 343, for cases sustaining the above general rule. In Emory University v. Shadburn, 47 Ga. App. 643 (171 S. E. 192), the rule was stated as follows: “A private hospital in which patients are placed for treatment by their physicians, and which undertakes to care for the patients and supervise and look after them, is under the duty to exercise such reasonable care in looking after and protecting a patient as the patient’s condition, which is known to the hospital through its agents and servants charged with the duty of looking after and supervising the patient, may require. This duty extends to safeguarding and protecting the patient from any known or reasonably apprehended danger from himself which may be due to his mental incapacity, and to use ordinary and reasonable care to prevent it.” In the instant case the petition describes the operation, the condition of the plaintiff, and the manifold defects in the electric fan, and avers that “all the above facts were known to defendant . . by and through
The Goddard case, supra, which is strongly relied on by counsel for the defendant, was one where the plaintiff sought to recover damages for nervous shock and premature childbirth resulting from an attack made on her husband by Watters, and where there was no contemporaneous injury. In the instant case the fright was attended with immediate physical injury; and, too, physical impairment which directly and naturally resulted from the fright. In Pettett v. Thompson, supra, this court held that “even for mere negligence, if the fright, shock, or mental suffering results naturally in mental or physical impairment, that is to say, if the knowledge of the defendant was or should have been such that the resulting injury could under the circumstances have been reasonably foreseen and anticipated as the direct, natural, and probable consequence of his act, a recovery against him may be had, and in such a case the original fright, shock, or mental suffering can also be considered as an element of damage. Chapman v. Western Union Tel. Co., 88 Ga. 763 (15 S. E. 901, 17 L. R. A. 430, 30 Am. St. R. 183); Goddard v. Watters, 14 Ga. App. 722 (82 S. E. 304); Charleston & Western Carolina Ry. Co. v. Hart, 23 Ga. App. 161 (97 S. E. 866).” In the recent case of Noth v. Davis, 57 Ga. App. 611 (196 S. E. 214), the petition substantially alleged that the defendant entered the plaintiff’s room, where she was confined with a female trouble, and with knowledge of her condition, in her presence, with his right hand in his pocket, abused plaintiff’s husband in a violent manner, called plaintiff and her husband liars, led plaintiff to believe that he was going to shoot her husband, and
Judgment reversed.