Opinion ID: 1964897
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Rising above one's own evidence.

Text: Correctly noting that none of the somatization plaintiffs' experts testified that these plaintiffs suffered a psychogenic injury or that any such injury was caused by the defendants' negligence, the defendants argue that [t]he [p]laintiffs should not be allowed to rise above their own evidence. This contention is fallacious. The sufficiency of the evidence of causation must be determined on the basis of the entire record, and it will not do to examine only the testimony introduced by the plaintiffs. In Greet v. Otis Elevator Co., 187 A.2d 896, 897 n. 1 (D.C.1963), this court stated the applicable principle: If a plaintiff has made out a prima facie case, a motion for a directed verdict at the close of plaintiff's evidence should be denied without restriction. The theory or theories upon which the case is submitted to the jury should be determined at the close of all the evidence because some evidence elicited from defendant's witnesses may be advantageous to plaintiff. Accord, Harris v. Plummer, 190 A.2d 98, 99 (D.C.1963) (quoting Greet ); see also J. Maury Dove Co. v. Cook, 59 App.D.C. 61, 62, 32 F.2d 957, 958 (1929). The former Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut has correctly explained that [t]he jury were not confined to the evidence offered by the plaintiff or any one witness. The truth in closely contested cases does not always lie altogether upon one side. It is often found partly in the evidence of a plaintiff and partly in that of a defendant. Giambartolomei v. Rocky DeCarlo & Sons, Inc., 143 Conn. 468, 123 A.2d 760, 763 (1956). In the present case, the trial judge instructed the jury, in conformity with District of Columbia Standardized Civil Jury Instruction No. 2.9 (1998), as follows: In deciding whether a question has been proved by a preponderance of the evidence, you should consider all of the evidence bearing on that question regardless of which party produced it. Each party is entitled to the benefit of any evidence which favors [it].... The judge also told the jurors that they were free to disregard any expert opinion in whole or in part.  (Emphasis added.) There was no objection to either of these instructions, and we conclude that they were legally sound.