## Facts

- Wendy McCourt was 23 years old and received care from Dr. Glenn Abernathy and Dr. J.D. Clyde, physicians associated with Family Medicine Associates, P.A.
- McCourt punctured a finger and soon afterward worked around horse manure and dirt.
- About two days later, she hyperextended a shoulder and went to Abernathy, who treated her for a pulled muscle.
- Four days after that visit, McCourt went to the emergency room with shortness of breath and chest pain. Clyde examined her, cleaned and dressed the finger wound, treated her for a pulled muscle, and discharged her.
- The next day, McCourt returned to the emergency room in worse condition. An emergency-room physician ordered blood tests and admitted her to the hospital.
- A few hours after admission, Abernathy examined McCourt, noted the finger injury, and prescribed an oral antibiotic.
- By the next morning, McCourt continued to worsen. Abernathy and Clyde asked another physician to evaluate her.
- The consulting physician diagnosed sepsis and transferred McCourt to the intensive-care unit for more aggressive treatment.
- McCourt was ultimately diagnosed with a rapidly progressing bacterial infection that spread into her bloodstream and throughout her body. Over the next four days, she developed severe complications and died of multiple organ failure.
- McCourt’s estate sued Abernathy and Clyde for medical malpractice and presented testimony that reasonably prudent physicians would have acted earlier (including earlier antibiotics, testing, monitoring, and consultation), and that timely treatment likely would have saved her life.
- At trial, the defendants requested jury instructions stating that a medical mistake, standing alone, is not necessarily malpractice, and that an error in diagnosis or judgment is not actionable if the physician acted within the standard of care. The trial court declined to give the requested language but instructed the jury on negligence, the standard of care, causation, and that physicians are not guarantors of a cure.
- The jury returned a verdict for the estate, awarding compensatory and punitive damages. The trial court denied defendants’ motions for a new trial and new trial nisi.

## Issues

1. Did the trial court commit reversible error by refusing defendants’ requested jury instructions emphasizing that a mere medical mistake, or an error in diagnosis or judgment consistent with the standard of care, is not malpractice?
2. Was the evidence sufficient to support punitive damages, and were the compensatory and punitive awards so excessive that the trial court abused its discretion in denying a new trial or new trial nisi?

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of South Carolina affirmed.
- The court held the trial judge was not required to use defendants’ requested wording because the charge, read as a whole, fairly stated the governing law and covered the substance of defendants’ theory (including that physicians are not insurers of results and that liability requires a negligent departure from the standard of care that proximately causes injury).
- The court held the evidence permitted a finding of willful, wanton, or reckless conduct, so punitive damages were properly submitted to the jury and supported by the record.
- The court found no abuse of discretion in refusing to disturb the verdicts as excessive; the awards were not shown to be the product of passion, prejudice, or other improper considerations.

## Legal Principles

- A trial court need not give a requested jury instruction in a party’s preferred language if the court’s instructions, considered as a whole, correctly state the law and substantially cover the point.
- In South Carolina medical-malpractice actions, a plaintiff must prove (typically by medical testimony) that the physician failed to exercise the degree of care and skill ordinarily employed by members of the profession under similar circumstances and that this failure proximately caused the injury or death.
- A poor outcome or a medical mistake does not by itself establish malpractice; liability turns on whether the physician’s conduct fell below the standard of care.
- Punitive damages in a medical-malpractice case require evidence from which a jury may find willful, wanton, or reckless conduct—meaning more than ordinary negligence and amounting to a conscious failure to exercise due care.
- Appellate review of the denial of new-trial motions based on alleged excessiveness of verdicts is deferential; the verdict will stand absent a clear abuse of discretion by the trial court.

## Conclusion

McCourt v. Abernathy affirmed a malpractice verdict arising from delayed recognition and treatment of a rapidly worsening infection that progressed to sepsis and death. The Supreme Court held the trial court properly refused defendants’ specially drafted “mere mistake” and “error in judgment” charges because the general instructions adequately required proof of negligence and causation and explained that physicians do not guarantee results. The court also upheld punitive damages and the overall size of the verdict, finding sufficient evidence of reckless conduct and no basis to conclude the awards resulted from improper jury motives.


McCourt v. Abernathy, 457 S.E.2d 603 (1995)