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Estate of Betty Jean Shinholster v. Annapolis Hospital7/30/2004
for subsequent medical malpractice in treating car accident injuries) is misplaced. This case is not relevant because it was decided at a time when any contributory negligence barred a plaintiff's lawsuit. If it was ever relevant, it stopped being so when this Court adopted pure comparative negligence. Placek v Sterling Hts, 405 Mich 638, 701; 275 NW2d 511 (1979). Moreover, to the extent that the inferences drawn from Podvin are inconsistent with MCL 600.6304, the statute must prevail.
The Court of Appeals also erred by mischaracterizing Shinholster's conduct as merely creating the condition that led her to seek treatment. Decedent's conduct may have done more than that. Her failure to properly take her medications may in fact have constituted a proximate cause of her death.
2. Limited Remand Because the trial court ruled that not all decedent's pre-treatment negligence could be considered, defendants were limited to submitting evidence that decedent was comparatively negligent only from April 7 onward, when she first visited the emergency room. Yet, it is apparent from that testimony that, had a wider scope of questioning been allowed, just as defendants' expert testimony supported the proposition that failure for ten days (April 7 through April 16) to regularly take her medications constituted a proximate cause, it may well have supported the same conclusion for a greater period. Accordingly, the trial court clearly erred in precluding evidence made admissible by § 6304, and this prevented defendants from receiving a fair trial with regard to the apportionment of damages. MCR 2.611(A)(1)(a). Because the jury in this case has already determined that defendants breached their standard of care, a determination that I note defendants have never appealed, I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand this case for calculation of damages only, ordering that the jury be permitted to consider Shinholster's pre-treatment negligence in apportioning fault concerning plaintiff's damages.
While I do not dispute the correctness of the Chief Justice's analysis in her concurrence/dissent concerning the prima facie elements of a tort cause of action, post at 8, I nonetheless believe that such analysis must be placed within the proper context. In a tort action, the plaintiff bears the burden of proving his prima facie case by demonstrating, as the Chief Justice has noted: (1) duty, (2) breach, (3) proximate causation, and (4) damages. If in this case, plaintiff had been permitted to present evidence demonstrating defendant's breach-which evidence was later held to be inadmissible-a remand for an entirely new trial might well be required, because such evidence would, in fact, implicate whether defendant had breached a duty, and, therefore, whether plaintiff had satisfied the prima facie elements of a tort action.
In the instant case, as in all tort actions, plaintiff bore the burden of proving her prima facie case, irrespective of her own negligent conduct. It was only after the jury determined that plaintiff had satisfied this burden, and that defendants were liable, that the jury should have considered whether defendants satisfied their burden of demonstrating that, despite their own liability, they were not exclusively liable because plaintiff herself was also negligent. Because the challenged evidence in this case has nothing to do with defendants' conduct, and thus nothing to do with whether plaintiff has satisfied her prima facie tort case, I believe that the Chief Justice's assertion that " imiting the new trial to damages only ignores the important fact that proximate cause is essential to a plaintiff's prima facie case," is incorrect. Post at 8.
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