The alleged malpractice suit : Thompson vs. Smith. Statement of experts and surgeons / Evidence reported by R.J. Hammond, reported for the Circuit court Nov. term, 1874, for Madison county, Iowa.

Smith, A. B. (Arthur B.)

Date:: 1875

Credit: The alleged malpractice suit : Thompson vs. Smith. Statement of experts and surgeons / Evidence reported by R.J. Hammond, reported for the Circuit court Nov. term, 1874, for Madison county, Iowa. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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$Sworn to, and subscribed before me, by each of tbe above named persons. Witness my band and Notarial Seal, this • 2Tth day of February, 1875. \ } T. C. Gilpin, I ®^^^'^ f Notary Public. I, James JVI. Rhodes, being duly sworn, do say that I was one of the jurors in the case of Thompson vs. Smith, at the Nov. term, 187-i, circuit court, Madison county, Iowa, and that \^hile in the jury room consulting on said case, it was claimed by John I. Brown, foreman of the jury, that the evidence given by the experts in said case should not be consided by them, as their evidence was only matter of opinion. That I wrote a note to the Judge, by the advice and counsel of others of the jury, asking fur advice on this subject; gave said note to the Sheriff to deliv- er to the Judge; l^ut we received no answer. We also then wrote a note, and sent it the Judge by the Sheriff, asking to be discharo-ed as we could not agree, and from this we received no answer, but after a long time the Sheriff, W. 0. Ludlow, re- tni^ned and wlien asked about said note, stated that he had not given it to tlie Judge, but that we had better agree on a verdict, or the judge would attend to us himself. And after being kept out an unreascaiable length of time, as we thouglit, and one of our number being sick, v/e felt that w^e were compelled to.con- si;nt to some kind of a verdict in order to get released from the jury room. And I liereby testify that the verdict, as signed by us, was not, and is not, the verdict of our unbiased opinions. But from tlie law and evidence in said case, it was, and is our opinion that the defendant should liave a verdict in this case. J. M. Rhodes. Sul)scrided, and sworn to, before me, this 1st day of March A. D., 1875. J. W. BoGAKDis, J. P. We also have the affidavits of several of the jurors, that if the verdict was against the plaintiff it would break him up; that they regarded him as an object of pity, and that tlie defendant was w^ell off and it would not hurt him; that this was used in the jury room as a reason for giving the plaintiff a verdict. Can any person of ordinary intelligence conceive of any con- struction that can be put upon tlie evidence that could give the plaintiff a verdict. The case is so plain that a wayfairing man^ thou:;]) a fix.)} could not f'j'e therein.$