Atkins v. Humes

Summary

The Florida District Court of Appeal, Second District, affirmed summary judgment for a physician in a medical malpractice action involving an infant's Volkmann's contracture after treatment for an elbow fracture. The court held that the record lacked competent evidence connecting the alleged negligent treatment to the injury and that the circumstances did not fall within the lay-observation exception to the usual requirement for expert testimony. The court reversed only the taxation of certain deposition-copy charges as costs.

Holdings

1. Summary judgment was proper because the appellants lacked evidence establishing negligent treatment or facts necessary to support their malpractice claim, and the record presented no genuine issue of material fact requiring a jury trial.
2. Expert testimony is generally necessary to establish negligence in a medical-malpractice action, except when the lack of skill or care is so obvious, or concerns a nontechnical matter, that ordinary lay knowledge and experience are sufficient.
3. A physician is not liable without competent evidence that the physician's negligence proximately caused the patient's injury, and malpractice liability may not be based on speculation or conjecture.
4. The trial court erred in taxing against the appellants the charges paid by the appellee for copies of certain depositions.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the pleadings, depositions, and affidavits presented a genuine issue of material fact concerning negligent application of the cast or failure to respond to warning signs of Volkmann's contracture.
2. Whether expert testimony was required to establish negligence in the medical treatment presented.
3. Whether the record established a non-speculative causal connection between the alleged malpractice and the child's injury.
4. Whether the trial court properly taxed the appellee's deposition-copy charges as costs.

Disposition

other