Opinion ID: 1438304
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Evidence Questions

Text: The caveator claims that she, her son, four of the nurses, who attended the testator, and his chauffeur-valet were competent to express an opinion as to the testator's lack of capacity to execute a valid deed or contract. One who is neither a subscribing witness nor an attending physician is not competent to express an opinion as to the capacity of a testator without first establishing facts upon which such opinion adequately may be founded. Sellers v. Qualls, 206 Md. 58, 110 A.2d 73 (1954); Wood v. Hankey, 133 Md. 389, 105 A. 430 (1918); The Berry Will Case, 93 Md. 560, 49 A. 401 (1901). And this is so even though the observation of the testator by the witness may have extended over a long period of time as was true of the relatives and the chauffeurvalet. Plummer v. Livesay, 185 Md. 450, 44 A.2d 919 (1945); Cronin v. Kimble, 156 Md. 489, 144 A. 698 (1929). The foundation on which these witnesses based their opinions was, however, no more than a combination of physical infirmities and characteristic oddities of the testator, and was not sufficient to demonstrate competency to express an opinion as to mental capacity or the lack of it. This same reason justified the refusal of the trial court to permit the nurses to testify as to the entries they had made in the nursing charts concerning the mental condition of the testator as distinguished from the facts concerning his physical condition which they were allowed to state. While the charts would have been admissible as entries made in the regular course of business under Code (1957), Art. 35, §§ 59, 60, it does not follow that everything in them was competent evidence. We think it is clear that the statute did not modify or alter the rule which forbids an expression of opinion by a person who is not competent to express an opinion. Baltimore & Ohio R.R. Co. v. Zapf, 192 Md. 403, 64 A.2d 139 (1949); Old v. Cooney Detective Agency, 215 Md. 517, 138 A.2d 889 (1958). See also Globe Indemnity Co. v. Reinhart, 152 Md. 439, 137 A. 43 (1927), decided before the enactment of the business records statute. The caveator also offered the testimony of two nonattending doctors as medical experts. One was an internist. The other was a psychiatrist. Neither had ever known or seen the testator. Both had read the hospital records and heard the testimony of the attending nurses, and one had also heard the testimony of the chauffeur-valet as to the physical condition and eccentricities of the testator. The court refused to permit either to express an opinion as to competency. The hypothetical questions put to them may well have been faulty in form in that they did not eliminate consideration of the opinions and inferences of others, but the more basic and fundamental defect was that the doctors, like the lay witnesses, had no sufficient factual basis on which an opinion could be expressed. The psychiatrist admitted that there was not enough information in the hospital records for him to form an opinion as of October 19, 1956, as to the mental condition of the testator. The internist stated that he relied on the hospital note, made in 1947, with respect to the somewhat senile condition of the testator and admitted that this is a term referring to physical aging and not necessarily to mental capacity. Essentially, neither doctor had enough information on which to base an opinion other than the testimony of the nurses and the chauffeur-valet and that was not enough. Sellers v. Qualls, supra . Horner v. Buckingham, 103 Md. 556, 64 A. 41 (1906). When evidence to show mental incapacity relates to circumstances which are not obscure and need no explanation by a physician, and are legally insufficient to support an inference of incapacity, the testimony of a medical expert is not admissible to show that he draws such an inference from such evidence. Grant v. Curtin, 194 Md. 363, 384, 71 A.2d 304 (1950). We think the opinions of the doctors were properly excluded. The suggestion that the attending nurses, particularly the psychiatric nurse, were qualified to express an opinion under the rule which permits attending physicians to express an opinion without establishing a basis for it, is without merit. Cf. Dashiell v. Griffith, 84 Md. 363, 370, 35 A. 1094 (1896); Gesell v. Baugher, 100 Md. 677, 684, 60 A. 481 (1905). We find no substance in the other questions raised as to rulings on the evidence.