Venkateswarlu Thota, and North Texas Cardiology Center, v. Margaret YOUNG
Read and understand the case or question assigned. Show your Analysis and Reasoning and make it clear you understand the material. Be sure to incorporate the concepts of the chapter we are studying to show your reasoning. Dedicate at least one heading to each following outline topic:
Parties [Identify the plaintiff and the defendant]
Facts [Summarize only those facts critical to the outcome of the case]
Procedure [Who brought the appeal? What was the outcome in the lower court(s)?]
Issue [Note the central question or questions on which the case turns]
Explain the applicable law(s). Use the textbook here. The law should come from the same chapter as the case. Be sure to use citations from the textbook including page numbers.
Holding [How did the court resolve the issue(s)? Who won?]
Reasoning [Explain the logic that supported the court’s decision]
Do significant research outside of the book and demonstrate that you have in an obvious way. This refers to research beyond the legal research. This involves something about the parties or other interesting related area. Show something you have discovered about the case, parties or other important element from your own research. Be sure this is obvious and adds value beyond the legal reasoning of the case.
Dedicate 1 heading to each of the case question(s) immediately following the case, if there are any. Be sure to restate and fully answer the questions
Quality in terms of substance, form, grammar and context. Be entertaining! Use excellent visual material
Wrap up with a Conclusion. This should summarize the key aspects of the decision and your recommendations on the court’s ruling.
Include citations and a reference page with your sources. Use APA style citations and references
Venkateswarlu Thota, and North Texas Cardiology Center, v. Margaret YOUNG
The parties in the case are Margaret Young who is the appellant in the case on behalf of her deceased husband, William Ronnie, appealing an adverse verdict that had been made regarding a claim of medical malpractice against Venkateswarlu Thota, M.D. and his employer, North Texas Cardiology Center (NTCC) concerning the kind of treatment she received with her husband during Ronnie’s cardiac catheterization. The plaintiff in the case is Ronnie’s Estate and Margaret Young, while the defendants are Dr. Thota and North Texas Cardiology Center (MoreLaw, 2008). Ronnie had died on March 10, 2005, at the age of fifty-seven three months after Dr. Thota had performed a cardiac catheterization that caused several other complications. According to the facts presented in the case, Ronnie suffered from abdominal pains. He fell from a chair in the evening of the same day that he had undergone cardiac catheterization. After being rushed back to the hospital, it was discovered that Ronnie had a large hematoma that had been caused by bleeding from the site of a cardiac catheterization. Ronnie underwent emergency surgery in the attempt to repair an arterial tear that had been caused by the cardiac catheterization. Ronnie was placed on a ventilator due to complications that had been caused by the cardiac catheterization. Ronnie had several strokes, lost one eye vision, and acute renal failure. Ronnie died three years later of leukemia.
The legal issue in the appeal was based on instructions that the judge had provided to the jury upon the initial trial. The main argument was to determine whether the court had granted the jury with instructions that are not proper, known as “new and independent cause,” and whether the submission of the patient’s conduct as “contributory negligence” was not a proper submission by the court (FindLAw, 2020). The general concept holds that the conduct of a patient that may befall after the doctor’s actions was made in a negligence way, then the conduct will be considered as “contributory negligence.” However, the doctors’ conduct of contributory negligence can be construed as the “failure to mitigate damages.” The determination of proper jury instructions is conducted to determine if the instructions played a significant part in the outcome of the case by affecting the jury’s ability to answer the issues presented to them. The general law only supports the reverse of judgment based on a charge error if the error was harmful that it had a probability of causing the rendition of the improper judgment or had a likelihood of preventing the petitioner from presenting the case properly to the appellate courts.
In the verdict of the court of appeal, it held that the instructions presented to the jury by the trial judge were both erroneous and presumptively harmful, and the new trail was to be conducted (Casetext Inc., 2020). However, the Supreme Court held its decision by reversing the court of appeals decision by returning that the harm could not be presumed. After the Supreme Court considering the evidence presented at the trial, it reasoned that the error of instructions did not attain the degree that can be considered to cause harm on delivery of proper judgment or had the probability of preventing the petitioner from presenting the case accurately to the appellate courts. Therefore, the court ruled the erroneous instructions to the jury were harmless, and the appellate cannot get a new trial using correct instructions.
References
Casetext Inc. (2020). Young v. Thota. Retrieved from https://casetext.com/case/young-v-thota/?PHONE_NUMBER_GROUP=P&NEW_CASE_PAGE=N
FindLAw. (2020). THOTA v. YOUNG. Retrieved from https://caselaw.findlaw.com/tx-supreme-court/1600779.html
MoreLaw. (2008). Margaret Young v. Venkateswarlu Thota, M.D. and North Texas Cardiology Center. Retrieved from https://www.morelaw.com/verdicts/case.asp?n=2-05-350-CV&s=TX&d=38095
