{
  "id": 8574557,
  "name": "BEULAH PAYNE v. F. K. GARVEY, FRANK SOHMER, DAVID CAYER and the NORTH CAROLINA BAPTIST HOSPITALS, INC.",
  "name_abbreviation": "Payne v. Garvey",
  "decision_date": "1965-06-02",
  "docket_number": "",
  "first_page": "593",
  "last_page": "595",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "264 N.C. 593"
    }
  ],
  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "N.C.",
    "id": 9292,
    "name": "Supreme Court of North Carolina"
  },
  "jurisdiction": {
    "id": 5,
    "name_long": "North Carolina",
    "name": "N.C."
  },
  "cites_to": [],
  "analysis": {
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    "ocr_confidence": 0.565,
    "pagerank": {
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    "sha256": "385ea6ad2d060de36405a35fe11a7df917209954acad532f677f7fca04b0c28c",
    "simhash": "1:e3efb769866a1868",
    "word_count": 773
  },
  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T15:18:06.877661+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
  },
  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "BEULAH PAYNE v. F. K. GARVEY, FRANK SOHMER, DAVID CAYER and the NORTH CAROLINA BAPTIST HOSPITALS, INC."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "PeR Cueiam.\nThe plaintiff admits the defendant Hospital is an eleemosynary institution, and perhaps not responsible under respondeat superior rules for the negligent acts of its employees. She does contend, however, that the hospital was under a positive duty to furnish safe equipment, including thermometers, for the use of employees in treating the hospital patients. If we accept the proposition that the hospital was charged with that duty, its exercise would require due care in the selection, inspection, and maintenance of the equipment. At most, the hospital was required to furnish standard equipment and to make reasonable inspection and remedy any defects discoverable by such inspection. The hospital did not guarantee a glass thermometer against breakage. Wherein the hospital failed to exercise due care in any particular, the evidence does not disclose.\nSomething more than an accident and injury is necessary to make out a case of actionable negligence against either the hospital or Dr. Sohmer. In fact, Dr. Sohmer did no more than have the plaintiff admitted to the hospital.\nThe plaintiff's own witness testified the student nurse had been instructed in the simple procedure of taking temperature and perhaps had several months experience in that procedure. The evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff does not bridge the hiatus between the accident and the injury. Negligent causation does not appear. The demurrer to the evidence was properly sustained. Judgment dismissing the action was required.\nAffirmed.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "PeR Cueiam."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Dalton & Long by W. R. Dalton, Jr., for plaintiff appellant.",
      "Smith, Moore, Smith, Schell & Iiunter by Richmond G., Bernhardt, Jr., for defendant Dr. Frank Sohmer, appellee.",
      "Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice by Irving E. Carlyle, Sapp & Sapp by Armistead W. Sapp for North Carolina Baptist Hospitals, Inc., appellee."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "BEULAH PAYNE v. F. K. GARVEY, FRANK SOHMER, DAVID CAYER and the NORTH CAROLINA BAPTIST HOSPITALS, INC.\n(Filed 2 June, 1965.)\nHospitals \u00a7 3; Physicians and Surgeons \u00a7 11\u2014\nEvidence tending to show that as a student nurse was shaking down a thermometer it broke and mercury and glass hit plaintiff's eye, causing injury, held, to disclose an accidental injury for which neither the hospital nor the physician having plaintiff admitted to the hospital may be held responsible, there being no evidence of negligence in furnishing the equipment, or in failing to make reasonable inspection of it, or in failing to properly instruct the nurse.\nAppeal by plaintiff from Braswell, J., January, 1965 Session, Ala-manCE Superior Court.\nThe plaintiff became a patient of Dr. Garvey, a specialist in one field of medicine who called in consultation Dr. Cayer and Dr. Sohmer, specialists in other fields. Dr. Sohmer had the patient admitted to the hospital.\nThe opening paragraph in plaintiff\u2019s brief contains a concise statement of this case:\n\u201cPlaintiff sues a hospital and three doctors for injuries resulting from a thermometer breaking and glass and mercury falling into her left eye. The complaint alleges that the doctors are liable for the negligence of the nurse handling the thermometer as their agent. The complaint does not allege any cause of action against the hospital based on respondeat superior but alleges corporate or administrative negligence in regard to (1) the instruments furnished, (2) permitting incompetent personnel to attend plaintiff, and (3) not giving this person proper instructions. The plaintiff appeals from judgment of nonsuit as to all defendants at close of plaintiff\u2019s evidence. Appeal was not perfected and is abandoned as to two of the defendants, but was perfected and is prosecuted as to the defendant The North CAROLINA Baptist Hospitals, INC., and Dr. Frank Sohmer.\"\nThe plaintiff\u2019s evidence disclosed that Miss Adams, a student nurse, had been in training at the hospital\u2019s nursing school for more than eight months. The supervisor of nursing testified that Miss Adams had been instructed and trained to take patients\u2019 temperatures . . . \u201cWe consider taking temperature one of the less complicated procedures. ... I am sure she had been under supervision long enough to have been doing it by herself for several months.\u201d \u201cThere is no prescribed method as to where the nurse shall stand or face in relation to a bed patient when shaking down the thermometer.\u201d\nThe plaintiff testified: \u201cI was watching her while she was shaking the thermometer. The thermometer did not hit me. It did not hit anything.\u201d . . . \u201cIt broke and the only thing I felt was when the mercury and glass hit my eye. . . .\u201d The plaintiff offered evidence that she had suffered pain and had some permanent injury to her vision. At the close of all the evidence the court sustained demurrers thereto and entered compulsory nonsuit against all defendants. The plaintiff prosecutes the appeal against Dr. Sohmer and the hospital.\nDalton & Long by W. R. Dalton, Jr., for plaintiff appellant.\nSmith, Moore, Smith, Schell & Iiunter by Richmond G., Bernhardt, Jr., for defendant Dr. Frank Sohmer, appellee.\nWomble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice by Irving E. Carlyle, Sapp & Sapp by Armistead W. Sapp for North Carolina Baptist Hospitals, Inc., appellee."
  },
  "file_name": "0593-01",
  "first_page_order": 629,
  "last_page_order": 631
}