Mark Armacost v. Reginald J. Davis
Case No. 69, September
Term, 2017
Opinion by J. McDonald
In January 2012, Mark Armacost
(“Armacost”) developed an infection after undergoing a spinal surgery performed
by Dr. Reginald Davis (“Dr. Davis”).
This infection caused Armacost pain and ultimately required him to undergo
a period of hospitalization in April 2012.
Two years later, Armacost filed suit against Dr. Davis alleging, among
other things, that Dr. Davis violated the standard of care expected of a
reasonably competent health care provider.
After three days of testimony, the trial court instructed the jury on
the laws governing its decision, including Armacost’s claims of medical
malpractice. When giving these
instructions, the trial court first provided the jury with instructions on the
general law of negligence, which states that the jury should measure the
defendant’s conduct against that of a reasonable person in similar
circumstances. The court then instructed
the jury that the particular standard of care applicable in this case is that
of a reasonably competent health care provider.
The jury then deliberated for three
days. At the end of the first two days, jurors
sent notes asserting that they were “undecided” and whether they could end
deliberations. On the third day, the
jurors sent notes expressing concerns about child care and asking what would
happen if they were unable to reach a decision. In response, the trial court
proposed to inform the jury that it would only need to deliberate for an
additional hour and to give the jury a “modified Allen charge” encouraging it to work to reach a resolution. Counsel for Dr. Davis objected to these
propositions and proposed that the jury should be allowed to deliberate to the
end of the day, and that if it did not return a verdict by then, Dr. Davis’
counsel would move for a mistrial. The
trial court dismissed counsel’s objection and provided the jury with both
instructions. As the trial court was
about to excuse the jury, it returned to the courtroom and entered a verdict in
favor of Armacost on the count of negligence.
On appeal, the Maryland Court of
Appeals was asked to determine whether the trial court abused its discretion
when: (1) instructing the jury on the standard of care for both general
negligence and medical malpractice; and (2) providing a “modified Allen charge”
along with an instruction that the jury would only need to deliberate for an
hour. On the first issue, counsel for
Dr. Davis argued that the trial court abused its discretion because providing
two instructions on the relevant standard of care may confuse the jury on how it
is expected to assess Dr. Davis’ conduct.
On the second issue, counsel for Dr. Davis argued that giving the
modified Allen charge immediately before telling the jury that it had a one-hour
deadline to deliberate was “unduly coercive.”
The Maryland Court of Appeals
determined that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when giving either
instruction. The Court reasoned that giving
both negligence instructions is not wrong as a matter of law, nor misleading,
when a trial court makes it clear that the claim of general negligence involves
an objective standard that requires a jury to measure a defendant’s conduct
against that of a reasonable person in similar circumstances, and that the
objective standard in the case before the jury requires it to compare the
conduct of Dr. Davis to that of a reasonable health care provider. In this case, the Court found that the
provided jury instructions, when viewed in the context of the trial, were not
misleading and were not likely to prejudice Dr. Davis.
Regarding the modified Allen charge,
the Court reasoned that giving the modified Allen charge itself was not an
abuse of discretion because, although it urged the jurors to render a verdict,
the content of the instruction did not favor either party and the trial court
explicitly told the jurors “not [to] surrender your honest conviction as to the
weight or effect of evidence solely because of the opinion of your fellow
jurors or for the mere purpose of returning a verdict.” When considering whether
it was an abuse of discretion to provide the modified Allen charge along with
an indication that the jury would only need to deliberate for an hour, the Court
reasoned that, in context, the instructions were not unduly coercive because
they occurred after several events suggesting that the jury wanted information
regarding its schedule. However, the Court
expressed that instructions informing juries of how long they must deliberate
must be considered in the context of their respective trials.
-Horton McCormick, Associate Attorney
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