KY: occluded artery--post cardiac catheterization: court rejects rigid list of duties for...

CASE FACTS: Irene Slone went to the outpatient department at Central Baptist Hospital on July 30, 1997, for a cardiac catheterization. She had previously undergone two cardiac catheterizations and had a history of hypertension, mitral valve prolapse, hyperlipidemia, and coronary artery disease.

Following the catheterization, Anglo-Seal was used to clot the patient's groin puncture site. Several days later, it was determined that the patient had an occluded right femoral artery. This necessitated an aortofemoral bypass graft to restore blood flow to the patient's leg. The patient continues to suffer severe and significant leg pain. The patient and her husband brought suit against the hospital in Fayette Circuit Court. Following a four-day jury trial, a jury returned a verdict for the hospital. The plaintiffs appealed.

COURT'S OPINION: The Court of Appeals of Kentucky affirmed the judgment of the lower court. The court held, inter alia, that the trial judge's instructions to the jury were not prejudicial to the plaintiffs. The court denied the plaintiffs' petition to rule that the trial judge erred in instructing jury as it did and refusing to instruct the jury as the plaintiff requested. The court observed that the plaintiff's request for instructions called for too rigid a list of ways, in which the hospital would have been required to act in order to meet the plaintiffs' definition of"due care." The general rule for the content of jury instructions on negligence is that they should be couched in terms of duty. They should not contain an abundance of detail but should provide only a bare bones outline of the question or questions presented for jury determination. This skeleton may be fleshed out by counsel in closing arguments. Whether the hospital hired knowledgeable nurses or had proper supervision for staff physicians, or accurate record keeping, and so forth, were all evidently questions for the jury to consider. While they constituted criteria that the jury might use to decide the question of ordinary care, listing them in the manner requested by the plaintiff was not necessary to pose the issue of the hospital's duty to the patient. In addition, instructions should not make a rigid list of ways in which a defendant must act in order to meet the duty of due care. The court rejected the plaintiff's contention that the trial court erred by not allowing a jury instruction on punitive damages. The jury found that the hospital did not breach its duty of care. Thus, the jury never reached the issue of damages. Accordingly, any error on the part of the trial judge in failing to instruct the jury on punitive damages was harmless error. Slone v. Central Baptist Hospital, 2005 WL 268031 S.W.3d -KY