Opinion ID: 2581048
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Exclusion of Medical Testimony Regarding the Nature of Kinzel's Back Injuries

Text: Kinzel argues that the court erred by excluding evidence as to the nature of his work-related back injury. He claims that this evidence was relevant to show the falsity of Brown's defamatory statement that his workers' compensation claim was bogus. Further he contends that the evidence should have been admitted to rebut evidence that his injury was feigned in order to develop claims against Discovery and Hart Crowser. But the sequence of events at the trial convinces us that the court did not err. The court initially excluded detailed evidence of Kinzel's back injury based on the court's view that he could not recover in the present case for the injury because of the exclusive remedy clause of the workers' compensation act. The evidence was offered initially by Kinzel only on the question of damages, and the court did not err in excluding it on relevancy grounds based on this offer. Later in the trial Kinzel argued that the evidence was important to his defamation claim to show that the falsity of Brown's statement that his workers' compensation claim was bogus. After much argument the trial court correctly ruled that the testimony of Dr. Howard as to the nature of Kinzel's injuries would be admitted. Dr. Howard testified that in his opinion Kinzel had a valid workers' compensation claim. Dr. Howard also testified that if Brown had consulted with a physician as to whether Kinzel's claim was valid or bogus, a reasonable physician would have said that it was a valid claim. Kinzel did not seek to introduce additional evidence as to his injury after this testimony. Subsequent to Dr. Howard's testimony, evidence that Kinzel had been planning a lawsuit was presented by the defendants. Once the evidence was presented Kinzel could have moved to introduce evidence of the nature and seriousness of his back injury in order to rebut the defense position that his was a trumped-up claim. But he appears not to have done this. Under the circumstances, we can identify no ruling by the trial court that was erroneous.