Case Name: Clifford Wharton, Respondent, v. The Department of Labor and Industries, Appellant
Court: Washington Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Washington
Decision Date: 1963-01-24
Citations: 61 Wash. 2d 286
Docket Number: No. 35736
Parties: Clifford Wharton, Respondent, v. The Department of Labor and Industries, Appellant.
Judges: 
Reporter: Washington Reports
Volume: 61
Pages: 286–294

Head Matter:
[No. 35736.
En Banc.
January 24, 1963.]
Clifford Wharton, Respondent, v. The Department of Labor and Industries, Appellant.
The Attorney General and James E. Nelson, Assistant, for appellant.
Robert H. Thompson (of Walthew, Warner & Keefe), for respondent.
Reported in 378 P. (2d) 290.

Opinion:
The defendant, the Department of Labor and Industries, appeals from a judgment for the plaintiff in an industrial insurance case.
The primary issue raised by several assignments of error challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict for the plaintiff. Before considering the evidence, it is well to repeat the applicable rule in considering the sufficiency of the evidence to support a verdict. It was stated by the late Judge Olson in Arnold v. Sanstol, 43 Wn. (2d) 94, 98, 260 P. (2d) 327, as follows:
"A verdict will not be set aside unless the court can say, as a matter of law, that there is neither evidence nor reasonable inference from the evidence to support the verdict. The evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the party against whom the motion is made. All competent evidence favorable to the party who obtained the verdict must be taken as true, and. that party must be given the benefit of every favorable inference which reasonably may be drawn from the evidence. If there is substantial evidence to support the verdict, it must stand. Substantial evidence is that character of evidence which would convince an unprejudiced, thinking mind of the truth of the fact to which the evidence is directed. Rettinger v. Bresnahan, 42 Wn. (2d) 631, 633, 257 P. (2d) 633 (1953), and case cited."
As indicated in the foregoing quotation, the evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the respondent. The appellant, on the other hand, here disregards entirely the respondent's proofs and considers only its own. At best, it may be said that the evidence is in conflict on the relationship of cause and effect between the accident and the disability, but the resolution of this dispute is for the jury and not the court. The respondent's proof showed that he was 38 years of age at the time of the injury sustained when the truck he was driving collided head on with an automobile. Respondent, observing the certainty of the collision, clung to the steering wheel and lay down on the front seat. The impact threw his head against the dash and smashed his tin hat. The gearshift handles hit him below his chest. His chief complaints, at the time of his hospitalization following the injury, were in his neck and head. There was a stinging and burning in his stomach just above the navel. Prior to the accident, he had no trouble with his chest or stomach. He was nauseated for a period of two months following the injury and complained of "charley horses." He had difficulty in walking. The stomach complaints increased and his legs became numb. He was operated for an occlusion of the abdominal artery, and his right leg was subsequently amputated.
Dr. Frank James testified in his behalf. He examined the respondent and testified that, as a result of the accident, he found:
"(1) Traumatic crushing injuries of abdomen, aorta, and chest, old; (2) traumatic injury of neck and left shoulder and arm, old; ."
As a result of his examination, he expressed the opinion that there was a direct relationship of cause and effect between the injury and the disability. His reasons therefor are as follows:
"A. Yes, in my opinion the trauma that Mr. Wharton sustained as of his injury of 6th of October, 1953, was in the nature of a crushing injury to the chest and abdomen in that the gear shift levers were forced up into the chest and abdomen just below the breastbone and that such a blow compresses or shoves together between the gearshift lever and the backbone the aorta, which is the biggest artery in the body, and in so doing it bruises that vessel; where the walls are bruised, a resulting scar tissue is formed and over a period of time, this scar tissue contracts, causing or aggravating an occlusion of the aorta so that it interferes with the circulation to the extent that the occlusion has to be removed if possible and cured with an artery transplant; and at that time, at the time of the heart surgery for the occlusion, a blood clot formed known as a thrombosis in the right leg shutting off circulation of the right leg and requiring an immediate amputation of the right leg and that after the patient got over the operation he still had a circulatory deficiency over his entire body, but particularly marked in the left arm and left leg."
The gist of the appellant's argument is that the hypothetical questions propounded to Dr. James by the respondent's counsel did not embrace the proofs that were afterwards made by the appellant. The argument completely overlooks the fact that neither the appellant's counsel nor the counsel for the respondent's employer (who participated fully in the proceeding) cross-examined Dr. James as to whether his opinion would be changed or not if the facts subsequently developed by the appellant were taken into account. It was perfectly proper for appellant's counsel to embrace such facts within hypothetical questions to be propounded by them in their cross-examination of Dr. James, but they did not do so. Under this state of the record, the applicable rule was stated in Wilson v. Pacific Power & Light Co., 171 Wash. 232, 17 P. (2d) 846, as follows:
"At the time that the question was propounded, there was no evidence that irrigation water from other lands might be the cause. It was proper for respondents to frame the hypothetical question upon the theory of their case and under the evidence introduced by them. Griggs v. Wayne, 100 Wash. 459, 171 Pac. 230; McEachran v. Rothschild & Co., 135 Wash. 260, 237 Pac. 711, 241 Pac. 969. Furthermore, appellant's counsel was privileged to, and did, upon cross-examination, bring to the attention of the witness the very element which it now claims was omitted from the original question, and received an unfavorable answer to his question. The assignment is not well taken."
Nor is there any merit in the appellant's contention that it was necessary for the respondent to include, in the hypothetical questions submitted to Dr. James, the facts which were subsequently developed in the appellant's proof. It is necessary that the hypothesis include only the facts developed by the respondent's own evidence. Wilson v. Pacific Power & Light Co., supra; McEachran v. Rothschild & Co., 135 Wash. 260, 237 Pac. 711, 241 Pac. 969; and Griggs v. Wayne, 100 Wash. 459, 171 Pac. 230.
The remaining assignments of error are related to the first. Error is assigned upon the refusal to instruct that the hypothetical question to an expert witness, which assumes the truth of a particular fact, depends upon the truth of the matters embraced in the hypothesis and whether all essential facts have been included. The exception taken to the refusal to give this instruction was that the hypothesis did not include the matters embraced in the evidence of the appellant which was subsequently introduced but not in evidence at the time. This involves the same problem heretofore decided.
In other instructions, the jury was told that they should consider an expert's opinion and weigh the reasons given for it, and accept or reject such opinion according to the reasons given for it. The respondent was not required to include in the hypothesis submitted to its expert matters subsequently covered by the appellant's evidence. It is sufficient if the hypothesis fairly embraces the evidence as it existed at the time the witness testified.
There was no error in refusing the requested instruction.
The judgment is affirmed.
Ott, C. J., Donworth, Finley, Hunter, and Hamilton, JJ.
The foregoing opinion had been prepared by Judge Harry Ellsworth Foster, but it had not been filed before his death. The following members of the court have adopted it as their opinion, and, for the reasons therein assigned, affirm the judgment.