Opinion ID: 2194743
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Incurable Prejudice to the Hospital

Text: Regarding the second prong of the Weiner testwhether excluding the evidence would incurably prejudice the party seeking to introduce itwe conclude that the evidence was highly relevant to the Hospital's case and its efforts to show that Dr. Townsend's actions were the proximate cause of Ms. Donaldson's injuries. Dr. Townsend urges that the standard of care testimony was not relevant to the Hospital's defense because the Hospital did not need to establish that Dr. Townsend breached the standard of care to defeat Ms. Donaldson's claim. While it may not have been necessary for the Hospital to prove that Dr. Townsend violated the standard of care in order to show that it was not liable, such testimony was certainly relevant to its defense. See, e.g., Plough, Inc. v. Nat'l Acad. of Sciences, 530 A.2d 1152, 1158 (D.C.1987) (testimony is relevant when it has a `tendency to make the existence of [a] fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action . . . more probable . . . than it would be without the evidence.') (quoting FED. R.EVID. 401). A breach of the standard of care by Dr. Townsend could have led the jury to conclude that this breach was an intervening factor and that, therefore, any breach by the Hospital was not a proximate cause of Ms. Donaldson's injuries. See, e.g., District of Columbia v. Zukerberg, 880 A.2d 276, 281 (D.C.2005) (This court has defined proximate causation as that cause which, in natural and continual sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause, produces the injury and without which the result would not have occurred.) (emphasis added) (citing St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co. v. James G. Davis Constr. Corp., 350 A.2d 751, 752 (D.C.1976)).