Ranson v. Funkhouser

Hammond, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant, Frederick Ranson, was driving his car ³⁴⁷ in. Rockville when the car collided with another car which had failed to honor a stop sign. Ranson was gripping the steering wheel rigidly and the impact caused the wheel to turn to the left, twisting his arm and wrist.

He was dazed and suffered back pain. After a few days the pain in the back subsided but his left wrist hurt. He had experienced soreness in that wrist several weeks before, after he hammered on his car’s muffler with a ball peen hammer and thought the automobile accident had “aggravated” the preexisting “strain.” The wrist continued to hurt intensely and he sought medical aid from various doctors, finally going to Johns Hopkins where he thought he could receive the best orthopedic care. Dr. Gibson Packard of the orthopedic staff, a doctor of very high qualifications in the field, found a rare condition, avascular necrosis of the left navicular bone (death of the bone due to interruption or disturbance of the blood supply), and treated Ranson for that condition, which is called Epimen Preiser’s disease.

Ranson sued the driver who had dishonored the stop sign. Judge Parker directed a verdict for Ranson on the issues of primary and contributory negligence, but thereafter directed a verdict for the defendant on the ground that Ranson had failed to establish a causal connection between the accident and the harm to his wrist. Judge Parker found that Dr. Packard’s answers on cross-examination destroyed his fiat testimony on direct examination that there was a causal connection. We think Judge Parker erred.

Dr. Packard detailed his findings as to and his treatments of Ranson, and said that to a reasonable medical certainty his opinion was that “the nature of the mechanism of the injury in the automobile accident is the most probable cause of the patient’s developing avascular necrosis of the carpal navicular bone.” Judge Parker asked the witness: “Is the competent producing cause of the injury the accident itself?” —to which the doctor replied: “I think we get in this area to my interpretation of the patient’s description of the two episodes related to the wrist [the hammering ³⁴⁸ with the ball peen hammer and the automobile accident], both of which produce symptoms * * *. It is my opinion that a pounding type movement with the hammer is less apt to produce a twisting type injury than an actual twist on a steering wheel, and it is because of my feeling with reference to this twisting type mechanism that I state my opinion that the probabilities — the medical probabilities are that the accident caused this problem.” Judge Parker asked: “To a reasonable degree of medical certainty?” Dr. Packard answered: “Yes, sir.” “All right, that’s it,” said Judge Parker, and he was then right. On cross-examination