Title: Ingram v. McCuiston
Citation: 134 S.E.2d 705, 261 N.C. 392
Docket Number: 246
State: north-carolina
Issuer: north-carolina Supreme Court
Date: March 4, 1964

134 S.E.2d 705 (1964) 261 N.C. 392 Betty Pat INGRAM v. Charlotte Sofley McCUISTON, and Charles T. McCuiston, as guardian ad litem for Linda Lee McCuiston, Minor. No. 246. Supreme Court of North Carolina. March 4, 1964. *706 Ralph C. Clontz, Jr., Charlotte, for plaintiff appellee. *707 Charles V. Tompkins, Jr., and Kennedy, Covington, Lobdell &amp; Hickman, Charlotte, for defendant appellants. SHARP, Justice. To establish the cause of plaintiff's injuries her counsel propounded to Dr. Miller a hypothetical question which covers six pages in the record. The defendants' objections to this question, and to another which incorporated it by reference, were overruled. The defendants assign these rulings as error and contend that they were prejudicial because: (1) The question was based on assumed facts of which there was no evidence; (2) it was based in part on the opinion of another expert as to the plaintiff's condition; (3) it included assumed facts totally unnecessary to enable the doctor to form a satisfactory medical opinion; and (4) it was argumentative and unduly colored the evidence in plaintiff's favor. We have concluded that in order to discuss appellants' contentions intelligibly we are forced to reproduce the hypothetical question here. Therefore, it follows: The doctor answered that in his opinion the collision could or might have produced the conditions described. The next question was: *711 Under our system the jury finds the facts and draws the inferences therefrom. The use of the hypothetical question is required if it is to have the benefit of expert opinions upon factual situations of which the experts have no personal knowledge. However, under the adversary method of trial, the hypothetical question has been so abused that criticism of it is now widespread and noted by every authority on evidence. E. g., Stansbury, N. C. Evidence, s. 137 (2d Ed. 1963); McCormick on Evidence, s. 16; Ladd, Expert Testimony, 5 Vand.L.Rev. 414, 427. Wigmore has urged that the hypothetical question be abolished: "Its abuses have become so obstructive and nauseous that no remedy short of extirpation will suffice. It is a logical necessity, but a practical incubus; and logic must here be sacrificed. After all, Law (in Mr. Justice Holmes' phrase) is much more than Logic. It is a strange irony that the hypothetical question, which is one of the few truly scientific features of the rules of Evidence, should have become that feature which does most to disgust men of science with the law of Evidence." II Wigmore, Evidence, s. 686 (3d ed. 1940). The comment contained in 2 Jones, Evidence, s. 422 (5th ed. 1958) might well have been directed at the hypothetical question involved in this appeal. To be competent, a hypothetical question may include only facts which are already in evidence or those which the jury might logically infer therefrom. Jackson v. Stancil, 253 N.C. 291, 116 S.E.2d 817; Stansbury, N. C. Evidence, s. 137 (2d ed. 1963) and cases therein cited. After a careful examination of the record, we find no evidence to support the following facts which were assumed in the hypothetical question involved on this appeal: (Figures in parentheses refer to correspondingly numbered paragraphs of the question.) 1. That the plaintiff "was in excellent physical, emotional, and psychological health," (1). All the evidence indicates that plaintiff had "always had some nervousness." Indeed, she told Dr. Miller that she was "an extremely apprehensive type individual." 2. That as a result of the collision plaintiff "became depressed and subject to suicidal tendencies," (15). There was ample evidence that plaintiff was abnormally depressed after the accident and during her entire pregnancy. However, there is no evidence either that she developed suicidal tendencies or that she lost the desire to live, as paragraph (17) of the question assumes the psychiatrist "found." Depression and suicidal tendencies are not necessarily synonymous. 3. "That the plaintiff presently is permanently partially disabled to the extent of 5% disability of said cervical spine, thoracic spine and lumbar spine," (20), (23). The evidence of such disability related only to the neck and thoracic spine. The doctor testified to no such disability in the lumbar spine. Defendants' objection that the hypothetical question asked Dr. Miller, an orthopedic surgeon, was based in part upon the opinion of Dr. Wright, a psychiatrist, must also be sustained. Paragraphs (16) and (17) of the question reveal its reference to Dr. Wright's diagnosis of the plaintiff's condition "as being an extremely depressive reaction, with nervous tension and depression greatly intensified since the date of the accident on March 16, 1961." The question does not assume that plaintiff was actually suffering from an extreme depressive reaction; it merely states that Dr. Wright made this diagnosis. The inclusion of such a statement violates the rule in this jurisdiction that the opinion of an expert witness *712 may not be predicated in whole or in part upon the opinions, inferences, or conclusions of other witnesses, whether they be expert or lay, unless their testimony is put to him hypothetically as an assumed fact. State v. David, 222 N.C. 242, 22 S.E.2d 633. When the hypothetical question is properly asked the jury can determine whether the assumed facts have been proven and weigh the opinion of the expert accordingly. An excellent statement of this rule appears in Quimby v. Greenhawk, 166 Md. 335, 340, 171 A. 59, 61: The purpose of the first hypothetical question asked Dr. Miller was to elicit his opinion whether the collision on March 16, 1961 could have produced the five percent permanent disability which he found in plaintiff's neck and thoracic spine. The references therein to plaintiff's mental health had no bearing on the query whether the collision might have caused the injury to her neck and thoracic spine. The purpose of the second question, which incorporated the first, was to find out whether, in his opinion, the plaintiff had sustained any permanent mental or emotional injury. As Dr. Miller himself told counsel, that question might have been more properly addressed to Dr. Wright, the psychiatrist. Furthermore, when paragraph (15) of the question stated that the collision on March 16, 1961 did proximately cause some "permanent dislocation, psychoneurosis, nervous shock, nervousness, and traumatic neurosis or anxiety neurosis," it assumed the very fact which plaintiff's counsel sought to establish by the doctor's opinion. The references in the question to plaintiff's childhood on the farm, the route and manner of driving which brought her to Tryon Street immediately before the collision, her consultations with Dr. Wright and his diagnosis of her condition, the fact that her lumbar spine could not be X-rayed because of her pregnancy, and the cost of medical bills in the past and in the future were totally irrelevant to the question of causation. An examination of paragraphs (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (16), (17), (18), (19), (21), and (22) discloses the validity of defendants' objection to the question on grounds that it contained an assumption of irrelevant facts. Each of the other paragraphs in question contain one or more references to facts which, more succinctly phrased, might be included in a properly stated question. The italicized words in paragraphs (3), (6), (11), (12), (14), and (23) are examples of the repetitious, slanted, and argumentative words and phrases of which the defendants properly complain. It was no part of the legitimate purpose of the hypothetical question under consideration to establish defendants' negligence; nor are six pages required to state a proper hypothetical question based on the relevant evidence in this case. A shorter question should be no more difficult to frame and it will be easier for the court to rule upon and the jury to understand. Defendants' assignments of error based on their objections to the hypothetical questions must be sustained. Since the case goes back for a new trial, it is not necessary to consider the other assignments involving questions which may not arise thereon. New trial.