Plaintiff appeals from the judgment based on the jury verdict finding against her and in favor of defendants St. Louis University and Richard Stensrude, Director of St. Louis University Medical Center. We affirm.
Appellant brought suit in the lower court on the theory of intentional infliction of emotional distress allegedly caused by Dr. Stensrude’s screening in her presence of a
The jury found in favor of respondents. The issues on appeal all relate to the conflicting psychiatric evidence as to causation of appellant’s mental distress. Appellant cites four points of error, three of which are related to the admission or exclusion of evidence. The fourth asserts cumulative error.
Appellant’s first point is that the trial court erred in admitting the depositions of the three defense psychiatrists because appellant contends their diagnoses of paranoid schizophrenia were based upon appellant’s statement that her sister had suffered from schizophrenia. At trial, appellant stated she received this impression from a “medical professional” in an emergency room after he had examined her sister for ten minutes and she related her sister’s diagnosis to the psychiatrists as family medical history. Because there was no other evidence of the sister’s schizophrenia presented at trial, appellant argues that the statement constituted hearsay and the expert testimony based on this hearsay is inadmissible.
Respondents argue that the statement is not hearsay because it falls under the past medical history exception, which allows evidence of a patient’s statements of medical history made to a doctor which are “reasonably pertinent” to diagnosis and treatment. Breeding v. Dodson Trailer Repair,
The fact that the depositions mentioned this hearsay, however, does not mean that they were inadmissible. While expert testimony must be based upon personal knowledge or observation of competent evidence, Kozeny-Wagner, Inc. v. Shark,
In the case at bar, the defense presented the depositions of three psychiatrists, Dr. El Toumi, Dr. Potter and Dr. Stillings, who had all examined appellant and who all opined that appellant suffered from paranoid schizophrenia before the movie incident. They felt the incident may have ex
Because of this finding, even if we assume Dr. Stillings’ deposition was inadmissible because of the hearsay we need not reverse the verdict since Dr. El Toumi’s and Dr. Potter’s depositions provided substantial competent evidence to support the judgment. Rinderknecht v. Caulfield,
If appellant’s attorney at the deposition believed Dr. Stillings’ diagnosis was based on the hearsay, she could have objected or presented a hypothetical question asking Dr. Stillings to specifically exclude the sister’s condition from his opinion. In fact, appellant’s attorney was given an opportunity to alter the hypothetical question to Dr. Stillings, but did not mention the sister’s diagnosis in her changes to the hypothetical. Such questioning would have been the most effective manner to determine whether Dr. Stillings considered this inadmissible factor in forming his opinion, but we can still conclude from the deposition that he did not base his opinion on that piece of hearsay. At most, the sister’s schizophrenia would have corroborated his own observations and opinion. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting Dr. Stillings’ deposition.
Appellant’s second point of error is that the lower court erred in admitting the deposition of Dr. El Toumi because it was a provisional diagnosis based upon a one hour interview. As noted earlier, an expert may testify based upon personal knowledge or his review of other competent evidence. Dr. El Toumi did interview appellant and thus based his diagnosis upon personal knowledge. Any defects in his diagnosis because of his relatively short investigation of appellant’s mental health relate to the weight his testimony should be given, not its admissibility. DeArmon v. City of St. Louis,
Appellant’s third point alleges that the trial court erred in not admitting the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Third Edition Revised (DSM-III-R) published in 1987 by the American Psychiatric Association because it falls under the learned trea
Respondents argue that there was no error because the manual was never formally offered into evidence. We agree with respondents, but hesitate to dismiss the point based on this reasoning alone. Although there is no formal offer or rejection reflected in the record, there is an extensive amount of discussion on the use of the manual. More disturbing, however, is the fact that the record does not reflect what use appellant intended to make of the manual. We do not know if appellant planned to enter the manual into evidence or merely have Dr. Murphy refer to it in his testimony. Nor can we determine what topics appellant planned to draw from the manual. A trial judge has great discretion in determining the admissibility of evidence and such a decision will not be reversed absent an abuse of discretion. Iota Management v. Boulevard Inv. Co.,
Point four of appellant’s brief argues that the sum of errors alleged were so prejudicial as to amount to reversible error. Because we have found no error, this point is obviously meritless.
Judgment affirmed.
Notes
. In addition to providing their own diagnoses, the experts were questioned in detail about the validity of the diagnosis upon which appellant bases her theory of injury. All three expressed the opinion that the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress syndrome, while a recognized mental condition, was a wholly inappropriate explanation of appellant’s mental disorder.