West v. Martin
Supreme Court of Missouri
Appeal from Buchanan Court of Common Pleas: This is an action for damages for malpractice, in the unskilfulness with which defendant set plaintiff’s leg. On the trial defendant offered to prove by plaintiff’s witness that plaintiff and his family had weak bones, very liable and easy to break and which were hard to cure. The court excluded the evidence about the bones.
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Appeal from Buchanan Court of Common Pleas: This is an action for damages for malpractice, in the unskilfulness with which defendant set plaintiff’s leg. On the trial defendant offered to prove by plaintiff’s witness that plaintiff and his family had weak bones, very liable and easy to break and which were hard to cure. The court excluded the evidence about the bones. Plaintiff asked Dr. Trevor this question : “ That if the directions of a surgeon had been followed in the treatment of the leg when broken, and he a skilful man, and the fracture a simple oblique fracture, would the leg, in your…
1Opinion of the CourtEwing, Judge
We can not perceive the ■ relevancy of the evidence offered by the defendant as to the “ weakness of the bones of the plaintiff’s family.” No such inquiry could properly arise upon the pleadings or any issue in the cause. The petition alleges unskilfulness in the treatment of the broken limb, and this allegation is traversed by the answer. If any hereditary peculiarity of that kind could have availed as a defence at all, it should have been set up in the answer. There was no offer to prove any inherent defect in the bones of the plaintiff himself, or that the deformity of the leg resulted…
2Cited by14 opinions
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- Dye v. CorbinWest Virginia Supreme Court · 1906
- Jenkins v. Charleston General Hospital & Training SchoolWest Virginia Supreme Court · 1922
- Schumacher v. Murray HospitalMontana Supreme Court · 1920
- Jackson v. BurnhamSupreme Court of Colorado · 1895
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