Payne v. Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital

EDMONDS, J., pro tem.

This is an action for damages alleged to have been sustained by plaintiff while a patient in the hospital operated by the defendant.

Plaintiff went to the hospital for an abdominal operation, which was performed by his own physician. He was thereafter cared for by his physician and by nurses employed by him or his physician. Plaintiff remained in the hospital until the wound healed, when he returned to his home in Los Angeles.

Some time later plaintiff experienced great physical discomfort, and in the endeavor to find a cause for the difficulty the old incision was opened…