Opinion
36452.
DECIDED FEBRUARY 28, 1957.
Tort; injuries sustained by patient. Before Judge Pharr. Fulton Superior Court. September 17, 1956.
Harold Sheats, Guy Parker, for plaintiff in error.
John A. Dunaway, Dunaway Embry, contra.
Where it affirmatively appeared that the plaintiff's injuries were brought about by her own act, and not the defendant's negligence, it was not error to sustain the general demurrer to the petition.
DECIDED FEBRUARY 28, 1957.
Allie B. Robinson brought an action against Dr. William E. Campbell, Jr., for injuries received from a fall in the defendant's office. The petition alleged that the defendant was a licensed, practicing physician with offices in the Medical Arts Building in Atlanta, Georgia, that prior to March 1, 1950, the plaintiff was a patient of the defendant having been treated by him for an eye condition which resulted in a partial loss of sight by the plaintiff, that on or about March 1, 1950, she went to the defendant's office for treatment, that in connection therewith the defendant instructed her to take her seat in a chair designed to be raised or lowered to permit treatment of the eyes of any patient seated in such chair, that on said occasion, after the defendant had taken her seat in the chair as instructed, she was raised in such chair and a medication of a kind unknown to her was placed in her eyes and she was left in a dependent condition for a long period of time (all the defendant's employee attendants having abandoned the plaintiff), and that after approximately thirty minutes the plaintiff attempted to get down from the said chair, tripped, and fell, causing the injuries complained of. The defendant was charged with negligence in failing to exercise that degree of professional skill and care required of a practicing physician, in placing the plaintiff, who the defendant knew had defective eyesight, in an exposed and dangerous physical position and abandoning her there, in failing to warn her not to attempt to get down from the said suspended position without assistance, and in failing either personally or by a nurse or other employee to attend the plaintiff so as to prevent her from being injured while in the exposed and suspended position. The plaintiff's injuries were set forth and the prayer was for process and judgment in the amount sued for.
The defendant filed special and general demurrers to the petition and the trial court sustained the general demurrer with the following judgment: "It appears from plaintiff's petition that plaintiff's injury was brought about by her own act, to wit: in getting down from the chair and was not caused by any negligent act of defendant. Therefore the defendant's general demurrer is sustained and the petition is dismissed." The plaintiff excepts to this judgment.
Code § 84-924 requires a physician to use reasonable care and skill in the practice of his profession, and ordinarily the question of whether a physician has used that degree of skill is a question for the jury. See Norton v. Hamilton, 92 Ga. App. 727, 731 ( 89 S.E.2d 809); and cits. However, where from the allegations of the plaintiff's petition it is palpably clear that the injuries complained of were not caused from the failure of the physician to use reasonable care and skill but from the act of the plaintiff, as in other cases, the question should be decided as a matter of law where a timely general demurrer has been filed.
The petition in the present case makes it affirmatively appear that the plaintiff was injured by her own act of attempting to get down from the chair which she knew had been raised so as to permit the defendant to examine and treat her eyes. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in sustaining the general demurrer to the petition.
Judgment affirmed. Felton, C. J., and Quillian, J., concur.