Sonogram Case Summary

These principles have been applied to find liability when a doctor negligently performed a sonogram by identify two tumors in an infant, when one tumor was the infant’s bladder. Panousos v. Allen, 245 Va. 60, 62-63 (1993). The other tumor, however, had obstructed the infant’s urethra causing the infant’s bladder to balloon, prevent urination, and resulted in the infant failing to nurse and becoming malnourished. Id. at 63. Pursuant to the erroneous sonogram, the doctor ordered surgery to remove the tumors. Id. Durring surgery another doctor discovered that one of the tumors was the infant’s bladder and removed a third of the child’s body weight of urine. Id. Also, the surgeon removed the tumor that obstructed the infant’s urethra—a necessary procedure not attributable to the doctor’s negligence. The infant then died from cardiac arrest allegedly

Blankenship Oil Corp., 221 Va. 124 (1980), a truck transporting oil began to leak on the road. The oil itself—though perhaps not environmentally friendly—was not particularly dangerous until the local fire department arrived where it attempted to wash the oil from the pavement with water. The oil and water mixture was them spread over the roadway where municipal vehicles had congregated to direct traffic while the problem was remedied. The plaintiff, then, disregarded the instructions of traffic control personnel drove over the oil/water mixture which caused her car to careen out of control and cause an accident. In that case, although the leak of the oil itself would not have caused the accident but for the fire department’s buffoonery in soaking it with water, and the plaintiff’s contributory negligence in disregarding the traffic control personnel, the Court held that the Oil truck could be the proximate cause of the accident because the harm was “’put into operation by the defendant’s wrongful act or omission.’” Id. at 131 (quoting Jefferson Hosp. Inc. v. Van Lear, 186 Va. 74, 81