140 N.W. 729 | N.D. | 1913
Lead Opinion
Plaintiff brought this action to recover damages for injuries sustained in a personal altercation with the defendant, over some live stock belonging to him which had trespassed upon land belonging to plaintiff’s husband. We do not find it necessary to enter into a detailed statement of the evidence adduced at the trial. A verdict for $2,000 was returned in favor of plaintiff. A new trial was denied on
1. Plaintiff and some of her witnesses testified to the altercation over the live stock and as to the injuries inflicted upon her by the defendant, her visits to a physician and his prescriptions for her. No attempt appears to have been made to subpoena such physician, until the time of the trial, when he was found to be absent in Canada on a visit. The assault found by the jury to have been committed was made November 6, 1908. The trial occurred in July, 1910. Dr. Per Oyen was called to give his opinion as to the extent of her injury and the ailments claimed to have arisen therefrom, their permanency, etc. He had never treated the plaintiff professionally. He testified that he had known her by sight for a year or two, but had only been acquainted with her two weeks, having, during that time, been called to attend a member of her family, and that he examined her on each of two days during the trial, for the purpose of qualifying himself to testify as an expert; and over objection he was permitted to tell the jury as to the character and extent of her ailments occasioned by the assault complained of and as to their permanency, such testimony being in corroboration of that of the plaintiff and other witnesses, but going directly to the amount of damages which the jury might award her, it being a case in which the amount awarded was largely within the discretion of the jury. He testified that he formed his diagnosis upon “the strength of what I found there, what I made her tell me, her answers to the inquiries I propounded. I diagnosed on that. ... I began to look into her symptoms, and asked her about it, and wanted to know about the changes from time to time, month after month, in the past, and went through the whole history.”
It must be borne in mind that there were no visible evidences of the injury complained of; that is, no scars or wounds visible, at the time’ of Dr. Oyen’s examination. She claimed to have suffered from headaches, nervousness, sleeplessness, heart, and other troubles, and that’ at the time of the trial she was still suffering to some extent from them, and that they all resulted from the assault of the defendant; that by
In summing up as to the competency of an expert opinion based upon information which the expert has derived from private conversations with third parties, Dean Rogers in his work on Expert Testimony, at § 16, says that it has never been held that this may be received, and that this does not apply to opinions based in part on statements made by the patient to the physician to enable the latter to determine upon a proper course of treatment. Some authorities fail to disclose whether the opinions received were from medical experts who had treated the party, or whether they were called only for the purpose of giving testimony, as in the case at bar. He also lays down the rule, in § 4-.1, at page 161, that the physician cannot give to the jury as evidence either the patient’s history of the case, statements in respect to the cause of the trouble or as to past experience with it; “neither can he express an
The supreme court of Michigan, in Grand Rapids & I. R. Co. v. Huntley, 38 Mich. 537, 31 Am. Rep. 321, held that exclamations of pain were properly excluded from evidence when they were made at a medical examination, which was solely for the purpose of obtaining testimony. To the same effect, see Darrigan v. New York & N. E. R. Co. 52 Conn. 285, 52 Am. Rep. 590, 11 Am. Neg. Cas. 250. The Connecticut court says that to admit them would be to permit “parties to introduce in evidence their own declarations made out of court, not under oath and when the temptation to exaggerate, and even to utter untruths, would be pretty strong.” In Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. Frazier, 27 Kan. 463, the physician who had made an examination of the plaintiff was permitted to testify, from such examination and from the history of the case as detailed by the plaintiff to him, and from statements made by her husband in her presence to him, as to the cause of the malady with which the plaintiff was afflicted; and Judge Brewer, writing the opinion holding this evidence incompetent, says that it would have been perfectly competent for the physician to have testified not merely to the appearance of the wound as he saw it, but also to all statements made by Mrs. Frazier as to her present bodily condition, and to have given to the jury his opinion based upon such examination and statements; but that it was not competent for the physician to testify as to her statements in respect to the cause of the injury, her past experience in connection with it, or to give his opinion as based upon such history of the case. And in Heald v. Thing, 45 Me. 392, the court of that state sustained the trial court which permitted a physician, who had made an examination and received a history of the ease, to give his opinion as far as it was based upon his personal examination, but he was not permitted to state what the patient had given as the history of the case, or to give the jury an opinion based partially or wholly upon such history.
In Kreuziger v. Chicago & N. W. R. Co. 73 Wis. 158, 40 N. W. 657, it was held that it constituted error to receive as evidence the testimony of a physician upon what the plaintiff and her mother told him, a year and a half after the accident; and the court remarks that such testimony is grossly incompetent and unsafe by all authorities and by
In the case at har the physician testified at length as to his methods, of examination, and stated in effect that the plaintiff could not deceive-him as to her condition. In the recent case of Marshall v. Wabash R. Co. 171 Mich. 180, 137 N. W. 89, a reversal on a second trial was ordered, largely because the medical expert who had been called to make-the examination to qualify him as a witness was permitted to testify that, in his opinion, the plaintiff was not simulating, on the ground that that question was for the jury; and it was held that the witness should have been confined to the conditions he found and to his opinion based thereon. In harmony with our conclusions is Russell v. Lowell,. 11 Gray, 420, where it was held that a surgeon who attended and prescribed for the plaintiff, once three months after the accident, and examined the injuries again after the action was brought, may be allowed to testify to his opinion of the injuries derived from what he saw, but not from any statements of the plaintiff. And in Quaife v. Chicago & N. W. R. Co. 48 Wis. 513, 33 Am. Rep. 821, 4 N. W. 658,. 10 Am. Neg. Cas. 472, the Wisconsin court held that, where an opinion of an expert is based upon an examination as to the party’s present, condition, for the purpose of giving evidence and not for the purpose of giving medical advice, an objection would probably be well taken tO' allowing the expert to take into consideration the party’s statements made at such examination; that such statements would be subject to a. suspicion that they were made for the purpose of getting an opinion favorable to her. In that case, however, the expert opinions were received because the examination was not sought by the party, and her statements were made in answer to interrogatories put by experts, supposed to be impartial, if not hostile, to her, and were made subject to a full cross-examination by the experts, so that there was but very little probability that they were mislead or influenced by any colored or false statements. That is one of the authorities cited as supporting the admission of the testimony of the expert in cases like that at bar.
“The declarations of a person as to his symptons, made to a physician ■or surgeon, not for the purpose of treatment, but for the purpose of leading the physician or surgeon to form an opinion to which he may testify as a witness for the declarant, in a suit brought by him for personal injuries, are not admissible in evidence at the instance of the ■declarant.”
This rule, however, was modified in' that case, because the court found that the objectionable statements as to past condition were supported by other uncontradicted testimony. In Denver & R. G. R. Co. v. Roller, 49 L.R.A. 77, 41 C. C. A. 22, 100 Fed. 738, the questions objected to were hypothetical questions, and the testimony discussed is that of the party who had been the physician of the injured ■one for several years; .and his testimony was based upon his attendance upon her as a physician; and the court held that it was not error to permit him to give his opinion as to the cause of his patient’s condition from his own knowledge from his attendance, treatment, and examinations, although based in part upon her statements and complaints made at different times as to her pains and sufferings. It has no bearing upon the case at bar.
Barber v. Merriam, 11 Allen, 322, also cited, simply goes to the competency of the testimony of a physician as to his conclusions from examining the party as a patient; and the opinion discusses the propriety of admitting the testimony of a physician as to the declarations of the party, made to her physician in attendance for the purpose of giving medical advice and treatment; and that the fact that the state
2. Another error assigned relates to testimony regarding wages of one daughter of plaintiff, and the condition of plaintiff making it necessary for another daughter to remain at home and do the household work; and it is contended that, although the court modified the judgment to the extent of the wages of the daughter, on which a definite value was placed, yet that the jury may have taken into consideration, as a basis for a portion of the damages found, the services of the younger daughter, on which no evidence was offered of value. While we think it a dangerous practice to permit such vague and indefinite evidence to go to the jury, as rendering it possible for them to find damages of this sort, yet we are unable to say, from the record, that the error is prejudicial. Of course the wages of the minor daughters belonged to the father, rather than to the plaintiff, so, as furnishing a partial measure of damages, it was wholly incompetent.
3. Error is also assigned on the admission of certain testimony of the doctor which was in the nature of an argument, in favor of the respondent, to the jury while he was under oath. Without going into particulars regarding this, we hold it erroneous to admit it, and in any new trial it should be excluded. But we shall not at this time say that its receipt was prejudicial.
4. Respondent contends that the error in admitting the testimony of Dr. Oyen regarding his diagnosis was cured by subsequent testimony as to the same things. That such error may often be cured in this manner is true, but he was the expert witness on whose testimony the plaintiff relied to establish, in part, ’ the character of the injuries, their extent, and their permanency; and we are unable to find that there was any prior or subsequent evidence on this subject which can be in any manner held to cure this error.
5. This disposes of the appeal, but we feel required to call attention to the claims of counsel for respondent, found in the last six pages of his brief, wherein he argues that this judgment can only be reversed on technicalities. He makes the stock argument seen in so many newspapers, and in the writings of so many laymen, as to the crime of reversing judgments on technical error. The fundamental fallacy in
Respondent cites a section of the new English criminal appeal act, and seems to commend it to the consideration of this court, but, although of recent enactment in England, it but voices the attitude of this court on the subject, and the law of this state as announced and enacted long before 1907, when the English statute was enacted. When the amount of the verdict is based on incompetent and prejudicial evidence, what court can say that, in the language of the English, statute, “no substantial miscarriage of justice has actually occurred,” or, in the words of a bill recently passed by the national House of Representatives, to which reference is made in the brief, that the error “does not injuriously affect the substantial rights of the party complaining ?” It is impossible to say what the verdict would, or should, have been had this evidence been excluded, or even that there would have been a verdict in plaintiff’s favor. The order and judgment of the District Court are reversed and a new trial granted.
being disqualified, did not participate in the above decision.
Rehearing
On Petition for Rehearing.
Respondent has filed a petition for rehearing. It is a very carefully and ably prepared document, and sets forth very ■clearly counsel’s views regarding the questions decided in our original ■opinion. The writer does not ordinarily consider supplementary opinions on petitions for rehearing as of much value, but the importance ■of the questions involved in this case, and the apparent misapprehension of counsel as to the decision of the court as to some of them, or the failure of the court to make its meaning clear, leads him to reply to the most important points attempted to be made by counsel, in his
The first contention is that the court has entirely overlooked the nature of the question asked of Dr. Oyen, and erroneously assumes that it calls for hearsay testimony. A careful re-examination of the record leads us to the conclusion that counsel’s interpretation of the court’s opinion is too narrow. He assumes that we hold the question, “What diagnosis did you form, Doctor, in your examination of her ?” to be objectionable only in form. Such was not our intention. If his diagnosis had not been clearly shown to have rested in part at least upon an improper basis, the question would have been proper. But we are called upon to consider the foundation laid for this question. That foundation consisted in the testimony previously given by the doctor as to how he reached his conclusions, and the premises on which they rested. The objection covered this ground. The doctor had been examined in detail with reference to his examination of the plaintiff, from which examination, in all its parts, he formed his opinion called for in the question. His testimony regarding the method of examination was not incompetent. It was his conclusion derived from such examination that was incompetent, and hence appellant was not required to object to questions calling for a description, nor of his method of examination and the basis of his opinion. A proper objection to the final question calling for his opinion, and his conclusions from such examination, was all that was necessary. He testified as to the condition in which he found her by certain tests which he applied; that he formed a diagnosis on the strength of “what he found there, what he made her tell him, her answers to the inquiries propounded;” and that the usual way for a physician to form a diagnosis of a person who comes to him is from all symptoms found, and also from the history of the cases related by the patient; that he must base his conclusion on what he finds, and on what he observes, and on what the patient tells him. This is undoubtedly a correct method to aid in laying a foundation for the question, when the witness is a physician whose patient the plaintiff had been, and who had heard her history of the case to enable him to prescribe for her; but that is not this case, as we have above noted. The mistake of respondent consisted in pursuing the same method of examination that he would have followed had plaintiff
Tbe second point respondent makes is that tbe doctor later testified to bis diagnosis, without objection. It is clear that this fact does not cure tbe error. Tbe question to which objection was made was comprehensive, and tbe objection covered all testimony given under that bead, even though in response to a repetition of that question or of other things which were necessary elements involved in that question, when propounded to tbe same witness, and particularly when not covered by tbe testimony of other witnesses of tbe same class; that is, experts. Every practising attorney knows that constantly interposing objections, and repeating them, and calling for a ruling of tbe court on the admission of answers to nearly every question, prejudices tbe jury against tbe party making tbe objections. Courts are not required to listen to and decide repetitions of tbe same objection when wholly unnecessary to protect tbe rights of a party. An objection properly interposed to a general question covers all subsequent questions on tbe same subject propounded to tbe same witness, and having for their object tbe eliciting of answers necessarily included in tbe answer to tbe main question. Subsequent objections are not required in a case like this. Tbe objection to tbe general question intended to bring forth tbe opinion of tbe witness as to tbe condition, etc., of tbe plaintiff was sufficient to cover ■ subsequent questions of tbe same nature, and to secure a review of tbe errors in tbe admission of testimony of like character from tbe same witness. This question has already been passed upon by this court in American Mortg. Co. v. Mouse River Live Stock Co. 10 N. D. 290, 86 N. W. 965, and tbe court said: “There was a general objection that said deed was incompetent, and to this was added tbe specific objection that no 'foundation’ had been laid, and that- it did not appear that E. M. Prouty bad any record title, or any title whatever. Defendant was chargeable with notice that when be offered a record of an original in
We think that we have herein covered all the questions raised in the petition that merit notice. We may, however, add that a large part of respondent’s original brief was devoted to the discussion of the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict, and the logic of counsel’s argument is that where there is evidence to sustain the verdict the judgment should not be reversed, regardless of the admission of incompetent and prejudicial evidence. The question of the sufficiency of the evidence was not in this appeal. It is true that in this case other witnesses testified to the injuries inflicted and the apparent results, but Dr. Oyen was the only physician who testified, and his testimony must necessarily have had great weight with the jury, and bore directly upon the measure of damages. It is nowhere claimed that it goes to the fact of the injury. As to that the evidence was in conflict, but, having found that the defendant injured the plaintiff, the jury had other duties to perform in reaching a verdict. It was necessary for it to find the amount of damages, and this finding would depend on the permanent effect of the injuries, the probability of a recovery, complete or partial, not simply the extent of the incapacity of the plaintiff to labor, according to her own opinion, but such incapacity, if any, as one competent to judge of its permanency and whether it came from natural causes or some unnatural cause, would testify to; and great care was, under the circumstances, incumbent upon counsel and the court to admit no incompetent evidence which might tend to magnify the damages, or to admit an expert opinion based upon any suspicion which might furnish an erroneous foundation. The petition for rehearing is denied.