Smith v. Emery

OPINION

On March 1, 1988, appellants Phillip and Mary Beth Smith (the “Smiths”) rented a Verdi, Nevada, home owned by NEC, a corporation owned by respondent Clyde Emery (“Emery”) and his wife. On March 2, 1988, the first night the Smiths slept in the home, both Phillip and Mary Beth Smith became ill. Physicians at Washoe Medical Center diagnosed the Smiths as suffering from carbon monoxide (“CO”) poisoning. The only therapy for CO poisoning is treatment in a hyperbaric chamber, a device not then available in northern Nevada. Accordingly, the Smiths were taken by air ambulance to San Pablo,…