163 A.D.2d 859 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1990
Judgment and order unanimously reversed on the law with costs, and new trial granted. Memorandum: Plaintiff commenced this action against defendant psychiatrist and his professional corporation to recover damages based upon claims that defendant committed medical malpractice in his psychiatric care and treatment of plaintiff and was otherwise negligent in failing to take proper care for the protection of plaintiff, who was known to have suicidal tendencies. Plaintiff was a young man who, while under the care of defendant, was admitted to the Benjamin Rush Psychiatric Center in Syracuse. While a patient there, he tried to kill himself on two separate occasions, once by taking an overdose of pills and once by hanging himself from sprinkler pipes in his room. Subsequently, he again attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself from the same sprinkler pipes. Although the hospital staff discovered plaintiff and managed to save his life, he suffered severe brain damage and is now permanently disabled.
Plaintiff proceeded to a jury trial on his causes of action for medical malpractice and common-law negligence. Following close of proof, the trial court ruled that this was a case of medical malpractice and refused plaintiff’s request to charge common-law negligence. The jury returned a verdict of no cause of action on plaintiff’s claim for medical malpractice. Plaintiff’s posttrial motion to set aside the verdict or, in the alternative, for a new trial, was denied.
Supreme Court erred in refusing to charge common-law negligence. Because medical malpractice is simply one form of negligence, no rigid analytical line separates the two (Scott v Uljanov, 74 NY2d 673, 674; Bleiler v Bodnar, 65 NY2d 65, 72; Perkins v Kearney, 155 AD2d 191, 192). “The distinction between ordinary negligence and malpractice turns on whether the acts or omissions complained of involve a matter of medical science or art requiring special skills not ordinarily possessed by lay persons or whether the conduct complained of can instead be assessed on the basis of common everyday experience of the trier of the facts” (Miller v Albany Med. Center Hosp., 95 AD2d 977, 978; Twitchell v MacKay, 78 AD2d 125, 127; Hale v State of New York, 53 AD2d 1025, lv denied 40 NY2d 804).
Although expert testimony is ordinarily required to establish a prima facie case of medical malpractice, where, as here, the issue of negligence is readily determinable by a trier of