297 Mass. 91 | Mass. | 1937
The first action, by the minor plaintiff, is for alleged malpractice against a physician and surgeon who treated him after his right hand had been injured in the wringer of a washing machine. The second action is by the father of the minor for consequential damages. After verdicts for the plaintiffs the judge allowed motions for new trial in both actions on the sole ground that there was not sufficient evidence to warrant the verdicts. The correctness of this ruling is the only question reported for our determination.
We are of the opinion that from all this evidence, including the admissions, the jury could find that the defendant failed to exercise the skill and care which it was his duty as a physician and surgeon to exercise toward his patient, in that he failed to discover the septic condition of the boy’s hand or failed to recognize its seriousness and failed to give or to procure proper treatment as promptly as he should have done. King v. Belmore, 248 Mass. 108. Boston v. Fountain, 267 Mass. 196. Compare Bouffard v. Canby, 292 Mass. 305.
The defendant contends that the evidence discloses no ascertainable consequences resulting from any failure on the part of the defendant which might not have followed from so severe an injury even if he had been in no way remiss, citing Wright v. Clement, 287 Mass. 175, Semerjian v. Stetson, 284 Mass. 510, and similar cases. But we think that from the progressive nature of the infective process, as shown by the evidence, in which time may well be an important element, and from the evidence that the defendant’s treatment after active infection set in was not proper and that infection was arrested when the treatment was changed, it cannot quite be said as matter of law that there was no proof that delay in proper treatment was injurious in some degree, even if it only retarded ultimate recovery. In King v. Belmore, 248 Mass. 108, 112-113,
In each case the order allowing the motion for new trial is reversed and the verdict is to stand.
So ordered.