Opinion ID: 1956217
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: claim of newly discovered evidence

Text: In the second assignment of error, the defendants argue that the district court incorrectly concluded that there exists newly discovered evidence which requires a new trial. The plaintiffs, on the other hand, argue that Abraham's postverdict statements to the wife establish that he held an opinion favorable to the plaintiffs, but that they were unable to discover that fact because of Abraham's denial in answer to their interrogatories of any neurological or psychological damage on the day of the attempted procedure and his refusal to answer, when being deposed, whether the patient then demonstrated a neurological deficit. It is appropriate to recall at this point that in order to warrant the granting of a new trial because of newly discovered evidence, the movant must establish that the evidence at issue could not have been discovered through the exercise of reasonable diligence by either the litigant or counsel, that the evidence is not merely cumulative, and that the evidence is competent, relevant, and material and of such a character as to reasonably justify a belief that its admission would bring about a different result if a new trial were granted. See, Ipock v. Union Ins. Co., 242 Neb. 448, 495 N.W.2d 905 (1993); Federal Dep. Ins. Corp. v. Swanson, 231 Neb. 148, 435 N.W.2d 659 (1989), overruled on other grounds, Eccleston v. Chait, 241 Neb. 961, 492 N.W.2d 860 (1992). The plaintiffs suggest that Abraham's observation that 6 years have passed since he last saw the patient and that as a result valuable time has been lost somehow establishes an admission of negligence on Abraham's part. The notion is untenable. If the statement means anything, it is nothing more than a recognition that the patient's condition, whatever it is, is now of long standing. Neither do the statements the wife ascribes to Abraham provide a basis for depriving the defendants of the benefit of the verdict. Whatever Abraham's alleged remark that he hoped a verdict would be returned for the plaintiffs may have been intended to convey, it does not rise to the level of a postverdict admission of preverdict negligence. See Tamper v. Schaper, 748 S.W.2d 183 (Mo.App.1988) (as statements in malpractice action did not clearly constitute admission, trial court did not abuse discretion in refusing to receive into evidence physician's statements he personally liked claimant and did not care if she got money). While it is true that the other comment attributed to Abraham, that the administration of the Valium pushed the patient's preexisting neurological and psychological abnormalities over the edge, can be understood to contradict Abraham's answer to the plaintiffs' pretrial interrogatories that the patient sustained no damage on the day of the attempted procedure and is, to that extent, new information, it nonetheless does not constitute an admission that in Abraham's opinion, the amount of Valium he administered violated the requisite standard of care. In the absence of such an admission, the statement that the Valium pushed the patient over the edge has no legal relevance. See, Sutton v. Calhoun, 593 F.2d 127 (10th Cir. 1979) (trial court properly refused to instruct that surgeon's statement he had made mistake in cutting duct was admission of negligence); Phillips v. Powell, 210 Cal. 39, 290 P. 441 (1930) (physician's statements that it was his fault in using particular knife during surgical operation and that he had a slight accident and had broken a knife in the operation, but in spite of bungling job thought boy was going to pull through, and his failure to reply to mother's statements that she felt boy's injuries were fault of physicians held not to constitute admissions that physicians did not possess and use requisite degree of skill); Donahoo v. Lovas, 105 Cal.App. 705, 288 P. 698 (1930) (admission that alcohol should not have been injected held to be expression based on results of injection and of no value in showing whether ordinary skill used); Markart v. Zeimer, 67 Cal.App. 363, 227 P. 683 (1924) (physician's statements that misoperation and wrong operation resulted in further injury held to be admission that operation was not properly performed, but not sufficient to establish liability, as did not admit negligence); Smith v. Karen S. Reisig, M.D., Inc., 686 P.2d 285 (Okla.1984) (physician's characterization of injury in medical records as inadvertent injury of bladder merely described result and was not admission that care was substandard).