What legal issues are addressed in this case?

The case addresses whether a surgeon's statement that he would guarantee a 'hundred per cent perfect hand' was a contractual warranty or a mere opinion or prediction, whether the issue was properly submitted to the jury, and what the proper measure of damages is for breach of such a warranty. It also addresses the objective standard for contractual intent and the propriety of the defendant's requested jury instructions.

What rule did the court rely on in this case?

The court applied the rule that words are given their objective meaning and, if reasonably capable of bearing a contractual meaning, present a jury question on whether a promise was made. For damages, it applied the expectation measure drawn from breach of warranty law: the difference between the value of what was promised and the value of what was delivered, plus foreseeable incidental losses, rather than the pain and suffering incurred.

Would the case have come out differently if certain facts were changed?

Yes. If the surgeon had only predicted a good result or expressed hope or belief about the outcome, the statements would be opinion and create no contractual liability. Likewise, without evidence that he solicited the operation or sought to experiment, the jury would have had less basis to find he intended his words to be taken as a binding guarantee.

Hawkins v. McGee

Supreme Court of New Hampshire - 84 N.H. 114 (1929)

Main Takeaway

A physician's explicit guarantee of a specific result can be an enforceable warranty if a jury finds it was intended and accepted as a promise, and breach is remedied by expectation damages (the difference between the promised and actual result), not by compensation for pain and suffering. The pain of the operation is part of the consideration the patient gave, not a measure of loss.

Issues

Does a surgeon's pre-operative statement guaranteeing a 'hundred per cent perfect hand' create an enforceable contract of warranty, and if so, is the measure of damages for its breach the difference in value between the promised hand and the resulting hand rather than the plaintiff's pain and suffering?

Facts

The plaintiff suffered a severe burn from contact with an electric wire about nine years before the events in question, leaving considerable scar tissue on the palm of his right hand. The defendant, a surgeon, performed an operation to remove the scar tissue and graft skin taken from the plaintiff's chest onto the palm. Before the operation, the plaintiff and his father visited the defendant's office, where the defendant allegedly said the boy would be in the hospital three or four days and then return to work with a perfect hand. The plaintiff also testified that the defendant said, 'I will guarantee to make the hand a hundred per cent perfect hand' or 'a hundred per cent good hand.' There was evidence that the defendant repeatedly solicited the opportunity to perform the operation from the plaintiff's father, and plaintiff's counsel advanced the theory on cross-examination that the defendant had little previous experience with skin grafting and sought an opportunity to experiment. The operation did not produce the promised result. The defendant also refused to perform a further corrective operation.

Procedural History

The plaintiff sued the defendant for breach of an alleged contract to produce a perfect hand. The case was tried before a jury, which returned a verdict for the plaintiff. The defendant excepted to the trial court's jury instructions on damages and to the denial of his requested instructions. The trial court set aside the verdict as excessive to the extent it exceeded $500. The case came before the Supreme Court of New Hampshire on the parties' exceptions.

Holding and Rationale

(Branch, J.)

Yes. The question of whether a contract was made was properly submitted to the jury, but the damages instruction was erroneous, so a new trial is required.

The defendant's statements about the length of the hospital stay and the plaintiff's return to work were mere predictions of the probable course of treatment and could not support contractual liability. However, the alleged statement that the defendant would 'guarantee to make the hand a hundred per cent perfect hand,' taken at face value, supports a finding of a warranty. Before a jury considers contract formation, the trial court must decide as a matter of law whether the words could possibly bear the meaning the plaintiff asserts. Here, additional facts supported the plaintiff's reading: there was evidence that the defendant repeatedly solicited the chance to operate, and plaintiff's counsel advanced the theory that he was seeking to experiment with skin grafting. If the jury accepted that contention, it could reasonably conclude that the defendant intended his words to be taken at face value as an inducement to obtain consent, and the plaintiff and his father accepted them as such.

The damages instruction, which allowed recovery for pain and suffering and for any injury beyond the plaintiff's pre-operative condition, was erroneous. Contract damages compensate for breach, measured in the terms of the contract, and aim to put the plaintiff in as good a position as if the contract had been performed. By analogy to breach of warranty on a machine, the measure is the difference between the value of the hand as promised and the value of the hand as it actually is, plus incidental consequences within the parties' contemplation. Pain and suffering from the operation was part of the consideration the plaintiff gave in exchange for the promise and is not a measure of the value of a perfect hand. Separately submitting any worsening of the hand was also misleading, since it is already encompassed in the expectation measure.

The defendant's requested instructions were properly denied. They misstated the issues, wrongly looked to the parties' subjective understanding rather than the objective standard, and ignored evidence that the defendant refused a further operation.