Opinion ID: 1817624
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Dr Clara Adele Thiel

Text: ¶ 56. The second physician to testify at trial was Dr. Clara Adele Thiel, a board certified neurologist with an office at River Oaks Hospital in Jackson. Dr. Thiel never treated Mrs. Stewart but formulated her opinions upon review of the medical records. ¶ 57. Dr. Thiel testified that the standard of care when a physician suspects a stroke is to order an MRI or CT scan. She noted that neither was ordered when Mrs. Stewart visited the emergency room following the fall on August 11th. She further testified that St. Dominic's Hospital records reflected no swelling, no increased blood pressure, and no neurological deficit on the day of the fall. ¶ 58. Dr. Thiel testified that the symptoms exhibited by Mrs. Stewart as reported in the hospital admission on the 19th could indicate a new stroke, but they could also be caused by any number of minor things, and an MRI is required to diagnose a new stroke, an extension of the old stroke, or one of the other more minor causes of the symptoms. The MRI, performed on Mrs. Stewart on the 19th, showed the old stroke but no evidence of a new stroke. Dr. Thiel testified that essentially, she had old chronic findings but nothing new. Dr. Thiel testified she would expect something to show up on an MRI to indicate a new stroke, even just a mild one. ¶ 59. Concerning the foreseeability [6] of a stroke resulting from the fall, Dr. Thiel testified: It would be extremely uncommon, almost unheard of for a minor fall to cause a stroke ... any minor head trauma should not cause a stroke.... I am saying that head trauma per se is not really cause for strokes. It's not a precipitating factor for stroke, you know. If you have a major head trauma, certainly there can be some sequelae and some problems form [sic] that, but it's generally not a stroke. ¶ 60. As stated earlier in Smith v. United States , A person charged with negligence in that he should have anticipated the probability of an injury from an act done by him is not bound to a prevision or anticipation which would include an unusual, improbable or extraordinary occurrence, although such happening is within range of possibilities. 284 F.Supp. at 261-62. The only expert witness to testify concerning the likelihood of a fall causing a stroke was Dr. Thiel, who testified that it is extremely uncommon, almost unheard of for a minor fall to cause a stroke.... I am saying that head trauma per se is not really a cause for strokes. ¶ 61. The Estate directs us to much authority which establishes that a particular injury need not be anticipated, so long as some injury can reasonably be expected to result from negligent conduct. See e.g., Gulledge v. Shaw, 880 So.2d 288, 293 (Miss.2004). We do not retreat from this principle of law. It should certainly be anticipated that negligently allowing an elderly person to fall in a parking lot could lead to many kinds of injuries including a broken arm, cuts bruises, or even concussion. The exact injury need not be expected, anticipated or even contemplated. But these are injuries brought about by trauma. A stroke is not an injury but rather a medical condition which (according to Dr. Thiel's unrebutted testimony) is not an anticipated result of trauma. Thus, our holding in Gulledge is inapposite. ¶ 62. Citing Blake v. Clein, 903 So.2d 710, 729-30 (Miss.2005), the Estate also urges us to find that Mrs. Stewart was an eggshell plaintiff. The eggshell plaintiff theory does not obviate the necessity to show foreseeability. It simply provides that plaintiffs who are far more susceptible to a particular harm than the average person may nonetheless recover their full damages without reduction. In other words, you take the plaintiff as you find him or her. Applying the eggshell plaintiff theory to this case, if stroke were a foreseeable consequence of the City's negligence, then the City would be liable for all damages related to the stroke, even if Mrs. Stewart were far more susceptible to stroke than the average person. But we do not reach the eggshell plaintiff analysis without first satisfying the question of foreseeability. ¶ 63. Because the unchallenged [7] expert testimony at trial established that stroke is not a foreseeable consequence of the alleged negligence which led to Mrs. Stewart's fall, we hold that the Estate may not recover damages related to the stroke, whether or not it was caused by the fall on August 11, 1997.
¶ 64. Mrs. Stewart called Kearney Waites to testify as an expert and tendered him as an expert in administrating programs with a component of transporting the elderly and infirm. At the time of trial, Waites was the director of the Association for Retarded Citizens Programs in Warren County. He received both a master's degree in counseling and a bachelor of arts degree in education from the University of Mississippi. None of his programs dealt specifically with the transportation of elderly citizens. Mrs. Stewart's attorney admitted that [w]e're not offering him as an expert in contract law. Even after this admission, however, the trial court allowed Waites to testify about numerous contracts, policies, regulations and forms including specific contract provisions, how they interacted, what standard of care they provided and who was bound by them. ¶ 65. Since the standard of review for the admission of expert testimony is abuse of discretion, the decision will be reversed only if there is a finding that the discretion was arbitrary and clearly erroneous. Crane Co. v. Kitzinger, 860 So.2d at 1201. We find that matters of contract interpretation were clearly outside the tendered expertise of Mr. Waites. In Hart v. State, 637 So.2d 1329, 1338 (Miss.1994), this Court held [a] trial judge may exclude expert opinions which are not helpful to the trier of fact and which state legal conclusions beyond the specialized knowledge of the expert. The realm of expert testimony was further clarified when this Court held that an expert may not offer so-called expert testimony in other areas in which he not even remotely meets the Miss. R. Evid. 702 criteria. Stubbs v. State, 845 So.2d 656, 670 (Miss.2003). ¶ 66. In light of Hart and Stubbs, the trial court abused its discretion by allowing Waites to testify to integral contract matters without any expertise in contract interpretation.