Callens v. Episcopal Found. of Jefferson County, etc., [Ms. SC-2024-0226, Jan. 10, 2025] __ So. 3d __ (Ala. 2025). The Court (Mendheim, J.; Shaw, J., concurs; Mitchell, J., concurs in part and concurs in the result, which Parker, C.J., and Bryan, J., join) affirms the Jefferson Circuit Court’s summary judgment entered against Betty Callens and in favor of the Episcopal Foundation of Jefferson County d/b/a St. Martin’s In-The-Pines (“St. Martin’s”) dismissing Callens’s claims of negligence, wantonness-willfulness, battery, and medical malpractice.
Callens alleged that she suffered a left hip dislocation because of rough handling by St. Martin’s nurses while they were bathing her backside. At the time, Callens was wearing a leg-immobilizer as she recuperated from left hip surgery. Callens argued her claims were within “the layman” exception to the requirement of presenting expert testimony to establish the standard of care and breach.
While acknowledging her argument has “surface appeal,” the Court notes that when “Callens arrived at St. Martin’s, Dr. Jones, Callens’s surgeon, had advised St. Martin’s that Callens was permitted to put as much weight as she was comfortable with on her left leg but that St. Martin’s should “‘maintain anterior and posterior hip precautions and [have Callens] wear [a] long leg immobilizer in bed and for transfers.’” Ms. *17. The Court agrees with St. Martin’s that ‘[t]here is nothing routine about turning and repositioning a patient like Callens.” Ibid.
Accordingly, the Court holds:
The mere fact that Callens, in her fragile condition, was injured in the course of the care and treatment being given to her by the St. Martin’s nurses does not, by itself, constitute substantial evidence of medical negligence. See, e.g., Watterson v. Conwell, 258 Ala. 180, 183, 61 So. 2d 690, 692 (1952) (“A showing of an unfortunate result does not raise an inference of culpability.”)….
In short, expert testimony was required to illuminate whether the St. Martin’s nurses should have performed the care and treatment being given to Callens in a different manner and whether such differences would have prevented Callens from sustaining another injury to her left hip. Callens failed to present expert testimony that would establish the standard of care required to be provided by St. Martin’s nurses and that would establish “‘a proximate causal connection between the [health-care provider’s] act or omission constituting the breach and the injury sustained by the plaintiff.’” Rivard v. University of Alabama Health Servs. Found., P.C., 835 So. 2d 987, 988 (Ala. 2002).
Ms. **18-19.