Jackson v. United States

THOMSEN, Chief Judge.

This action under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 1346, 2671 et seq., filed 20 May 1959, presents a troublesome question of damages, made more difficult by the fact that plaintiff’s counsel and witnesses have gilded his claim with deliberate exaggerations which must be scraped off before the underlying metal can be assayed.

The claim is based upon the alleged negligence of the doctors at the U.S.P.H. S. Hospital in Baltimore, who left a part of a surgical needle in plaintiff’s abdomen during an operation in March 1954, and learned that the needle was there…