Anderson v. Mountain Mgmt. Servs. Inc.

In this nursing malpractice case, the trial court granted the defendant’s motions to exclude the plaintiffs’ two expert witnesses —a doctor and a nurse. We granted interlocutory review and reverse with regard to the nurse. The record shows that on September 6, 2002, 77-year-old Sarah Anderson, accompanied by her husband Grady, went to see a doctor at her regular family practice clinic in LaFayette, which she had visited on numerous occasions over the prior six years. She was greeted by Nurse Kimi Crump, LPN, who led Anderson to the scales to be weighed. Sarah’s medical file showed that she had several risk factors for falling such as complaints of dizziness, a history of vertigo, obesity, gait disorder, prescription drug use, and other problems. Anderson asserts that nevertheless, Crump failed to assess Sarah’s current condition or discuss with Sarah how she was feeling or what Sarah’s complaints were that brought her to her doctor’s office. When Anderson stepped on the scale, Crump was holding a pen in one hand and Sarah’s purse and her medical chart in the other hand. As Crump weighed Sarah, Sarah stepped off the scale, fell, and broke her hip in four places. Crump saw Anderson fall.

Sarah and Grady Anderson brought suit against several defendants including Mountain Management Services, Inc. —Crump’s employer.1 In the complaint, the Andersons alleged the defendants knew that Sarah had various ailments that were well known by the medical and nursing profession to increase the risk of falling; that her medical chart indicated risk factors of falling; that Sarah gave a medical history of dizziness when she arrived for treatment; that she was not properly attended while standing on the scale; and that the failure to properly attend her, which allowed her to fall, was a breach of the standard of care of nurses. The complaint specifically alleges that based on their knowledge of Sarah’s condition, the defendants “should have taken action to prevent the plaintiff Sarah Anderson from falling from the scale while she was under the care and treatment of the defendants.”2