Litton v. Scheer
Litton v. Scheer
Opinion of the Court
In this appeal from a judgment upon a jury verdict against him, Dr. Litton contends that the trial court erred: (1) in instructing the jury on the claim of Ms. Scheer that he did not obtain her informed consent prior to performing surgery on her; (2) in permitting the claim of breach of medical warranty to go to the jury; and (3) in denying his motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. We affirm.
Scheer testified that Litton did not inform her of the risk of certain types of scarring which could result from the abdominal surgery he performed upon her; Litton testified that he did. The experts who testified agreed that the scarring resulting here was within the range of that which was medically foreseeable, and that the surgeon should have informed the patient of that range. The court instructed the jury that to find for Scheer, they must determine whether or not Litton informed
Having concluded that the trial court properly submitted the issue of informed consent to the jury, and in light of the fact that the jury found for Scheer on special interrogatories as to each claim, i.e., informed consent and medical warranty with a unitary recovery, we need not consider Litton’s other two claims of error. See Henderson v. District of Columbia, 493 A.2d 982, 989, 991, 997 (D.C. 1985).
Affirmed.
. We note further that the transcript of the hearing where instructions were “settled”, Litton stated that he did not disagree with this, although he later requested, after instructions, that a different formulation be submitted to the jury as a special interrogatory.
. We find no merit to Litton’s claim that the error (assuming it existed), in submitting the medical warranty claim to the jury, in some manner infects the validity of the informed consent verdict.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Clyde LITTON, M.D. v. Joyce R. SCHEER
- Status
- Published