Nurse Fails To Clarify Physician's Orders: Verdict Against Hospital For Nurse's Negligence
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
September 1997
Quick Summary: The two nurses' depositions were played back-to-back to the jury to demonstrate they were obviously confused about the orders.
One nurse gave pitocin to a patient in labor. Her uterus quickly ruptured and her son was born with severe neurological injuries.
The obstetrician claimed he never ordered pitocin. The jury returned a verdict saying the obstetrician was not guilty of negligence.
The jury awarded substantial damages against the hospital for its nurses’ negligence.
One nurse gave a videotaped deposition before trial saying there had been no order for pitocin, but that the physician's routine orders were to be followed. She testified she told the nurse coming on duty at the change of shift the physician’s routine orders were to be followed. She testified she did not tell anyone that pitocin had been ordered.
The second nurse testified in her pre-trial video deposition that the first nurse told her pitocin was ordered, so she gave pitocin. COURT OF APPEALS OF TEXAS, 1997.
The hospital’s attorneys objected vigorously during the trial that the patient’s attorneys were trying to embarrass the hospital and prejudice the jury against the hospital by playing back pre-trial videotaped depositions of the nurses who had cared for the patient.
The depositions were dramatic proof the nurses were confused about the physician’s orders. The jury was led to conclude it was negligence by the hospital’s nursing staff that caused a nurse to give pitocin to a patient on the labor and delivery unit, even though it had not been ordered by the patient’s obstetrician. The jury absolved the obstetrician from blame.
The Court of Appeals of Texas ruled that the nurses’ conflicting deposition testimony amounted to an admission by the hospital itself that the nurses did not know what the physician’s orders were. Putting conflicting statements by two different agents of the same party into evidence is a perfectly acceptable trial tactic, the court ruled. It is specifically contemplated and expressly allowed by the rules of evidence.
Although it was highly detrimental to the hospital’s defense, according to the court it was not improper to show the depositions to the jury and it offered no basis upon which an appeal could stand.
The court also upheld the trial judge’s decision to let the jury watch an eleven-minute videotape showing the child’s pediatrician attempting to direct the child to walk forward, walk backward, draw on a piece of paper, stack blocks, give a doll a bottle and talk, to demonstrate graphically the profound limitations in the child’s motor control and functional abilities.
This video also had a major effect on the jury. The jury returned a verdict in excess of $16 million, of which $10 million was to provide a lifetime of special care services for the child. Hospital vs. Lee, 946 S.W. 2d 580 (Tex. App., 1997).