Shorter v. Drury case brief

Shorter v. Drury case brief summary
695 P.2d 116 (1985)

CASE SYNOPSIS

Plaintiff, husband and personal representative of wife who bled to death after a dilation and curettage (D and C) operation, brought a wrongful death action against defendant doctor. The husband appealed from a jury decision in the Superior Court for Snohomish County (Washington), which found the doctor negligent, but determined that the wife and husband assumed the risk of the wife bleeding to death.

CASE FACTS
The wife was informed that there was a risk of bleeding, but still signed a form refusing blood transfusions and relieving the doctor of untoward results. After the D and C, the wife began to bleed from sights that were severely lacerated by the physician. Several doctors pleaded with the wife and husband to allow them to transfuse her, but both refused. The wife bled to death. 

DISCUSSION

• The court rejected the husband's argument that the purpose of the refusal was only to release the doctor from liability for not transfusing blood into the wife had she required blood during the course of a non-negligently performed operation. 
• The court held that the doctrine of express assumption of risk survived the enactment of the comparative negligence statute, Wash. Rev. Code § 4.22.010. 
• Then the court determined that while the wife and husband did not assume the risk of the negligence, the risk they did assume was the risk of death as the consequence of their refusal to permit a blood transfusion. 
• The record contained sufficient evidence from which a jury could have concluded that they understood and expressly assumed the risk of bleeding to death as a result of the doctor's negligence.

CONCLUSION

The court affirmed the judgment of the trial court, which found the doctor negligent, but determined that the wife and husband had assumed the risk of the wife bleeding to death.

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