Task: songer_direct1

What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
Your task is to determine the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision, coded as "liberal" or "conservative". Consider liberal to be for government tax claim; for person claiming patent or copyright infringement; for the plaintiff alleging the injury; for economic underdog if one party is clearly an underdog in comparison to the other, neither party is clearly an economic underdog; in cases pitting an individual against a business, the individual is presumed to be the economic underdog unless there is a clear indication in the opinion to the contrary; for debtor or bankrupt; for government or private party raising claim of violation of antitrust laws, or party opposing merger; for the economic underdog in private conflict over securities; for individual claiming a benefit from government; for government in disputes over government contracts and government seizure of property; for government regulation in government regulation of business; for greater protection of the environment or greater consumer protection (even if anti-government); for the injured party in admiralty - personal injury; for economic underdog in admiralty and miscellaneous economic cases. Consider the directionality to be "mixed" if the directionality of the decision was intermediate to the extremes defined above or if the decision was mixed (e.g., the conviction of defendant in a criminal trial was affirmed on one count but reversed on a second count or if the conviction was afirmed but the sentence was reduced). Consider "not ascertained" if the directionality could not be determined or if the outcome could not be classified according to any conventional outcome standards.

DANAHER, Circuit Judge.
The District Judge directed a verdict in favor of the appellee on the issue of negligence in a malpractice action. The appellant did not sustain his burden of proving that the surgeon had failed to exercise that degree of care and skill required by the standard of practice which the appellee was bound to afford to the appellant as his patient. The appellant’s claims as to breach of warranty and unauthorized operation were submitted to the jury pursuant to adequate instructions, adapted to the issues.
The jury returned a verdict in favor of the appellant awarding damages equal to the amount of the surgeon’s charge for his services. The award is now attacked, as grossly inadequate.
The jury might have decided that except for a comparatively minor phase of the surgery, the special damages claimed by appellant were actually attributable to a later operation by other surgeons. The jury might also have concluded that no credence could be placed in the appellant’s claim that the doctor had warranted a particular result. In any event, no special interrogatories had been submitted to the jury, and its general verdict is not without support in the record. The trial judge denied the appellant’s motion for a new trial. Our review of the record does not disclose such abuse of discretion as to require reversal.
We have examined other contentions of the appellant in respect of certain rulings on evidence as to which we find no error.
The judgment of the District Court is
Affirmed.
. Rodgers v. Lawson, 83 U.S.App.D.C. 281, 170 F.2d 157 (1948); and see Brown v. Keaveny, 117 U.S.App.D.C. -, 326 F.2d 660 (rehearing en banc denied).
. Hulett v. Brinson, 97 U.S.App.D.C. 139, 140, 229 F.2d 22, 23, cert. denied, 350 U.S. 1014, 76 S.Ct. 659, 100 L.Ed. 874 (1956) ; cf. Muldrow v. Daly, 117 U.S.App.D.C. -, -F.2d- (1964) ; Association of Western Railways v. Riss & Company, 112 U.S.App.D.C. 49, 52, 299 F.2d 133, 136, cert. denied, 370 U.S. 916, 82 S.Ct. 1555, 8 L.Ed.2d 498 (1962).

Question: What is the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision?
A. conservative
B. liberal
C. mixed
D. not ascertained
Answer:

Answer: A