Hospital Sued for Dad

Hospital Sued for Dad's Delivery Room Death

In a case of first impression, a California woman is suing the hospital where she gave birth last year for failing to prevent her husband from fainting in the delivery room and suffering fatal head injuries as he fell.

Steven Passalaqua, 33, fainted after staff at a Kaiser Permanente hospital in San Bernardino County allegedly asked him to assist them in giving his wife Jeannette an epidural injection to ease her labor pains. In his fall backwards, he "struck his head violently" on molding at the base of the wall behind him.

Doctors were treating Steven in the emergency room when Jeannette gave birth to their second child on June 30, 2004. He died two days later.

"[D]efendants unnecessarily and negligently created the circumstances which made it reasonably foreseeable that Steven would faint and sustain serious head injuries," Jeannette's wrongful-death complaint says.

Nonpatients have sued hospitals for nonfatal fainting-related injuries that they sustained in emergency rooms, but there appears to be no precedent (see table below) for an injury that occurred in a delivery room or was fatal.

In O'Hara v. Holy Cross Hospital, 561 N.E. 2d 18 (1990), a woman claimed she fainted after the doctor suturing her son's facial wound asked her to wipe anesthetic from the patient's mouth.

The Illinois Supreme Court refused to impose a duty on hospitals to prevent nonpatients from fainting, saying "the only practical way of protecting nonpatients would be to bar them from emergency rooms entirely." But a duty may arise if the nonpatient is

invited to participate in the care and treatment of the patient ... Once the nonpatient becomes actively involved in the emergency room procedures, the likelihood that that person would become ill increases.

The case could proceed, the court said, because the plaintiff had raised a triable issue as to whether she was invited to wipe her son's mouth or, as the doctor testified, did so of her own accord.

Courts have rejected the claims of nonpatients who were merely holding the head or hand of a patient before they fainted. "[T]here is nothing inherent in such acts which is likely to increase the likelihood of fainting, and nothing resembling participation in the medical procedures themselves," the Washington state Court of Appeals said in Zenkina v. Sisters of Providence, 922 P.2d 171 (1996).

In the Passalaqua case, the complaint alleges Steven was asked to put his arms around his wife and hold her, giving him an "unobstructed view of the insertion of the epidural needle from a very close proximity."

That may not be enough to hold Kaiser liable -- unless California follows the concurring opinion in O'Hara, which questioned the "supposed distinction between bystanders and participants."

"The defendants' duty ... is to exercise due care; it may be breached by conduct that induces a person to faint," Justice Benjamin K. Miller wrote.

*Emergency Room Fainting Cases*
*Case*	*Allegation*	*Decision*
Sacks v. Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, 684 F. Supp. 858 (1988)	Hospital liable for injuries to mother who fainted after observing stitching of child's head wound.	USDC (E.D.,Pa.) granted motion to dismiss.
O'Hara v. Holy Cross Hospital, 561 N.E.2d 18 (1990)	Hospital liable for injuries to mother who fainted while assisting doctor with stitching of child's facial wound.	Illinois Supreme Court found summary judgment wrongly granted to deft.
Zenkina v. Sisters of Providence, 922 P.2d 171 (1996)	Hospital liable for injuries to visitor who fainted while observing stitching of child's facial wound.	Washington state Court of Appeals affirmed summary dismissal.
Walters v. St. Francis Hospital, 932 P.2d 1041 (1997)	Hospital liable for injuries to man who fainted while observing doctors insert nasogastric tube in his fiancée.	Kansas Court of Appeals affirmed summary dismissal.
Murillo v. Griffin Hospital, 823 A.2d 1202 (2003)	Hospital liable for injuries to woman who fainted while observing IV needle insertion procedure on her sister.	Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed summary dismissal.

7/8/05