Peggy W. McBride Individually and as Next Friend of Susan Kay McBride v. United States of America, a Body Politic and Sovereign

After Commander Robert McBride, a retired naval officer, suffered a fatal heart attack, his widow and minor children commenced this wrongful death action against the United States under 28 U.S.C. § 1346 (b). They claim the death was proximately caused by negligent failure of the duty doctor at Tripler Army Hospital, Hawaii, to admit McBride to a coronary care unit.

The parties agreed to bifurcate the trial and to litigate first the issue of liability, with the court as trier of fact. At the close of the plaintiff’s evidence, the trial judge granted the government’s motion to dismiss under Rule 41(b), F. R.Civ.P., on the alternate grounds that the government doctor had not been negligent and that the plaintiffs had not established the requisite causal proximity between lack of hospital treatment and McBride's death.

We reverse and remand because we believe the trial judge may have applied an incorrect standard of care on the negligence issue, and because the finding on proximate causation is clearly erroneous.

I.

In January 1968 McBride spent five days in the Tripler Hospital heart ward, undergoing testing to diagnose the source of pain in his lower chest. The tests revealed no…