García v. Preston
García v. Preston
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of .the court.
This case in its essence involves the sufficiency of the complaint. The suit was originally filed in the Municipal Court of Naguabo and appealed to the District Court of Humacao. When the case was called for trial in the district court, the parties, after a discussion, agre'ed that the fourth paragraph of the complaint should be stricken out and that the court should then .decide whether the complaint so amended stated a cause of action. The court found in favor of the complainant and rendered judgment against thé defendants in the sum of $500, and costs.
The complaint to be reviewed as amended is as follows:
“The plaintiff herein, Casimiro García del Yalle, by his counsel, the Attorneys, Aponte and Aponte, appears before the court and brings an action against Gustavo R. Preston and his wife, Emma R. de Preston, also mentioned above, and alleges:
“First. That the plaintiff is a surgeon, authorized to practice his profession, and has 'an office in the town of Naguabo within this municipal judicial district.
“Second. That about December 4, 1909, at the request of the defendant, Emma R. de Preston, he called at her dwelling house (which is also the home of the other defendant, Gustavo Preston), in the practice of his profession in order to attend an employe of the defendant (the said Gustavo Preston) who was suffering from a cancer in his bladder with uninterrupted hemorrhage. The patient in question was known by the name of Mr. Sheldon.
“Third. That the defendants, Gustavo Preston and Emma R. de Preston, are husband and wife, living together in a ward within the municipal district of Naguabo called ‘Río Blanco,’ and their dwelling house is situated at a good distance from the said town of Naguabo.
“Fifth. That the plaintiff, in compliance with the wishes of*558 Mrs. Preston, attended Mr. Sbeldon until the 12th of December, 1909, sometimes remaining during a whole night by the bedside of the patient, and not one day passed without his working for the recovery of the patient in such a difficult case. The plaintiff alleges that, also at the request of Mrs. Preston, he accompanied the patient as far as San Juan, and he placed him in the Presbyterian Hospital there, having before and during the journey attended him with the greatest care. • , •
‘ ‘ Sixth.' That these professional services • are worth at least the sum of $500, which sum the defendants have not paid him, notwithstanding his requests for payment thereof.
“Seventh. The plaintiff alleges that before having recourse to judicial proceedings, and in order to avoid any litigation, he reduced the amount charged for his services to $205, for which sum he had been ready to give an acquittance to the defendants, but they have refused to pay either of these sums.
“For the foregoing reasons he prays the court to render judgment in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendants for the said sum of $500 and costs. ITumaeao, 10th of January, 1910. (Signed) Aponte and Aponte, counsel for the plaintiff.”
A complaint under onr system must contain a statement of the facts in ordinary and concise language. (Code of Civil Procedure, sec. 103.) In a very early case in California Mr. Justice Field held that “facts only must be stated. This means facts as contradistinguished from the law, from argument, from hypothesis, and from the evidence of -tiré facts.” (Green v. Palmer, 15 Cal., 412.) In Bank of Metropolis v. Guttschlick, 14 Pet., 27, it was held that “ * * * it is a rule in pleading,that facts may be stated according to their legal effect.” (See also Marshall v. Baltimore and Ohio R. R. Co., 16 How., 328.)
The causes of action at common law are maintained in the code States, and in a complaint in most of these jurisdictions it is only necessary to state the facts that would have been necessary at common law. (Budd v. Multnomah St. Ry. Co., 7 Pac., 102; McAllister v. Kuhn, 96 U. S., 87; Nebeker v. Harvey, 21 Utah, 373; 60 Pac., 1031, and cases
In accordance with, these principles, it has been generally held that when the law, under a common law or code system, would imply a promise to pay from given facts it was unnecessary to set forth such a promise'in the complaint. Pomeroy’s Code Remedies, sec. 432 et seq., 4th Ed., p. 578 et seq., Voight v. Brooks et al. [Mont.], 48 Pac., 550; opinion by Mr. Justice Hunt and citing cases Kraner v. Halsey, 82 Cal., 210; Wilkins v. Stidger, 22 Cal., 236.)
Accordingly, a physician who in one of the States renders services to a man, in a suit against the latter need neither allege nor prove a promise. A quantum meruit would lie. (Wilkins v. Stidger, supra; Dale v. Donaldson Lumber Co., 3 Am. St. Rep., 226, 2d Am. and Eng. Enc., vol. 22, 790; 30 Cyc., 1592.) The law would-imply a promise to pay where a man rendered valuable services to another, and a physician in the United States is no exception. However, the current of authorities in the United States is that a mere request preferred to a physician that he should render services to a third person, sick or in distress, does not make the person who summons the physician responsible. (30 Cyc., 1597; 2d Am. and Eng. Enc., vol. 22, 790-791; Cotnam v. Wisdom, 12 L. R. A. [N. S.], 1090, and note. Norton v. Rourke, 18 L. R. A. [N. S.], 176, and cases. Williams v. Brickrell, 75 Am. Dec., 88; Wharton & Stillie’s Medical Jurisprudence, vol. 3, sec. 467.) The leading case frequently cited is one fo which we have not access, Meisenbach v. Southern Cooperage Co., 45 Mo. App., 232, but there is a quotation from it in Norton v. Rourke as follows: “The reason and policy of this rule are obvious. * * * When a person is dangerously wounded and perhaps unable to speak for himself, or suffering so much that he does not know how to do it, any person will run to the nearest surgeon in the performance of an ordinary office of humanity. If it were the law that -the person so going for the surgeon thereby undertakes to
We have been unable to find any case construing a complaint where the services of a physician, as here, were rendered to a third person. It is a rule in code pleading that, only the ultimate facts should be averred. (McCaughey v. Schuette, 117 Cal., 224; McAllister v. Kuhn, 96 U. S., 87, supra; Columbus H. V. & T. Ry. Co. v. Gaffney, 61 N. E., 154.) If the complaint before us could be regarded as the statement of the ultimate facts necessary to a cause of action, perhaps it could be sustained. "While no case has been found construing a complaint where services by a physician to a third person were involved, yet implied contracts for benefits received by third persons have been so construed. In Conrad Nat. Bank v. Great Northern Ry. Co., 61 Pac., 3, the Supreme Court of Montana says: “Nor are the allegations.
By a parity of reasoning and under the authorities we think that the complaint would be insufficient in the United States. The facts are not sufficient to imply a promise on the part of Mrs. Preston to pay. There is nothing in the complaint which shows that Mrs. Preston did anything more than would have been done by any other person with humane instincts. Mrs. Preston sent for the doctor to come to her house, where the patient was, requested him to attend to the sick man, urged him to stay at the bedside, and requested him to accompany the invalid to San Juan, but there is nothing in these statements to induce the idea that Mrs. Preston intended the doctor to look to her and her husband for payment. An ultimate fact in this case would be some state-
The appellants at the hearing waived all questions of the power of Mrs. Preston to bind her husband and all questions of her responsibility as a married woman. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to take these admitted facts into -consideration in determining whether a woman under these -conditions, by the acts and words so set forth, intended a hiring of the physician or whether the physician was led by ■such acts or conduct into the belief that Mrs. Preston was seeking his services.
The facts set forth in the complaint do not set up a contract between the Prestons and the complainant. The sick man received the benefit of the physician’s services, and
jReversed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.