Opinion ID: 1058831
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Choice of Hospital as Mitigation Evidence

Text: Monahan also assigns error to the trial court's failure to grant his motion to instruct the jury to disregard the evidence regarding the emergency room facility to which Monahan was taken following his examination at Wakefield. He asserts [t]he evidence shows that the decision to take Monahan to Riverside hospital was made solely by his wife and that her conduct cannot be imputed to him for the purpose of proving a failure to mitigate his damages. Monahan emphasizes that Obici conceded at trial that no evidence suggested that the decision to take Monahan to Riverside was a direct and proximate cause of any of his injuries or damages. Obici responds that Monahan's own theory of the case put at issue the timeliness of treatment, including the relevance of the delay in treatment caused by going to Riverside instead of a closer facility. It argues that concluding the jury used the choice of hospital evidence to reduce damages is the stuff of speculation that ignores the other evidence supporting the defense of failure to mitigate damages. Obici conceded that the evidence did not support a claim that the decision of which emergency care facility to use was a direct or proximate cause of any damages Monahan suffered. Obici acknowledged to the trial court that there isn't an expert that said by taking this patient to Riverside, that there was additional damage caused. Furthermore, Obici submitted it was not arguing that this evidence was a superseding or intervening cause of the stroke. As such, there was no evidence that by going to Riverside rather than another facility, Monahan's injuries were in any way affected. Thus, any evidence about choice of emergency room facility was irrelevant to whether Monahan failed to mitigate his damages. The trial court therefore erred in refusing to instruct the jury to disregard that evidence as Monahan properly requested. Furthermore, this error cannot be considered harmless. The jury was improperly permitted to consider this testimony when deciding a verdict and, as discussed below, the jury was erroneously instructed regarding mitigation of damages. We have previously said, where evidence and an instruction have been erroneously submitted to the jury and the record does not reflect whether such evidence and instruction formed the basis of the jury's verdict, we must presume that the jury relied on such evidence and instruction in making its decision. Johnson v. Raviotta, 264 Va. 27, 39, 563 S.E.2d 727, 735 (2002). Accordingly, we must presume the jury's consideration of damages was affected by the ability to consider the improper choice of hospital evidence under the mitigation instruction.