This cause of action involved a patient who brought medical malpractice action against podiatrist who had performed foot surgery, alleging that he had improperly operated on both feet despite only receiving consent to treat right foot, and had negligently performed operation. Here the Court had to determine whether the common law “continuing medical treatment doctrine” remained viable in Tennessee which operates to toll the statute of limitations in medical malpractice cases until the termination of treatment or the physician/patient relationship.
In 1991, Theresa Stanbury worked on the assembly line at the Saturn Corporation in Spring Hill, Tennessee. She developed a corn on the fifth toe of her right foot which caused discomfort while she stood during her ten hour shift. A physician removed the corn and recommended that Stanbury consult a podiatrist. On November 22, 1991, Stanbury met with Dr. Brian Bacardi. After a cursory examination, Dr. Bacardi recommended a minor surgical procedure to prevent the fifth toe on Stanbury’s right foot from lying on top of her fourth toe. Dr. Bacardi assured Stanbury that recovery time following the surgery would be short and her work schedule would not be interrupted. Stanbury asserted that she was not informed about the nature of these procedures and that she did not know that she had consented to surgical procedures on both her feet. Stanbury said that she did not knowingly consent to anything other than the minor procedure Dr. Bacardi had described in his office on November 22.
Although she could remember very little about the afternoon following surgery, Stanbury said that over the following days she realized that surgery had been performed on both her feet, and she described her feet as “[t]wo big white blobs.” When Dr. Bacardi removed the surgical dressing during her first office visit on December 20, 1991, nine days after surgery, Stanbury said she was in “complete and utter shock” and that she “couldn’t believe all that had been done.
Theresa Stanbury filed a malpractice action against Dr. Bacardi and Hospital Corporation of America on April 30, 1993. She alleged that Dr. Bacardi had been negligent in advising her to have surgery, in performing the surgery, and in providing her post-operative care. Stanbury also alleged that Dr. Bacardi had performed unnecessary surgery, that he had failed to obtain her consent to the surgery performed on December 11, 1991, that he had ignored her complaints of pain and infection, and that he had falsified office notes to conceal her actual condition. Dr. Bacardi responded, denying all wrongdoing and asserting that the claims were barred by the statute of limitations. At the close of the plaintiffs’ proof in the jury trial, the trial court directed a verdict in favor of Dr. Bacardi on the theories of negligent post-operative care, ignoring Stanbury’s complaints of pain and infection, and intentionally falsifying office notes to conceal her true condition.The trial court submitted to the jury the plaintiff’s claims concerning lack of informed consent, advising and performing unnecessary surgery, and negligently performing the surgeries. In response to a question which arose during jury deliberations, however, the trial court withdrew the claim for negligently performing the surgeries. The jury returned a general verdict in favor of the plaintiffs awarding Theresa Stanbury $211,000 and John Stanbury $10,000.
The defendant appealed, and the Court of Appeals reversed the judgment in favor of the plaintiffs and dismissed the complaint, finding that the claims were barred by the one year statute of limitations. The intermediate court found the continuing medical treatment doctrine inapplicable under the facts of this case, and, in addition, observed that its applicability has been eroded or eliminated in this State by judicial and legislative adoption of the discovery rule.
in Teeters v. Currey, 518 S.W.2d 512 (Tenn.1974), adopted the discovery rule for determining when the statute of limitations begins to run in medical malpractice actions. In that case, the continuing treatment doctrine was unavailable because the doctor-patient relationship had terminated approximately three years before the suit was filed. The Court held that “the cause of action accrues and the statute of limitations commences to run when the patient discovers, or in the exercise of reasonable care and diligence for his own health and welfare, should have discovered the resulting injury.” Teeters, 518 S.W.2d at 515. In choosing to adopt the discovery rule, this Court refused to embrace a rule of law which would require a plaintiff to sue to vindicate a non-existing wrong at a time when the injury is “unknown and unknowable.” This Court did not address the relationship between the newly adopted discovery rule and the continuing medical treatment doctrine.
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