Opinion ID: 1292623
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: remarks during oral argument in the court of appeals

Text: Three allegations of negligence were submitted to the jury involving Dr. Porter: (1) Failure to perform or to obtain a liver biopsy; (2) failure to diagnose plaintiff's cirrhosis; and (3) failure to diagnose plaintiff's vitamin A toxicity. After a verdict was returned in plaintiff's favor, the trial court determined that there was no evidence that Dr. Porter's conduct fell below the standard of care on any allegation and entered judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Plaintiff assigned the ruling as error. The Court of Appeals found evidence to support the single allegation that Dr. Porter negligently failed to diagnose plaintiff's cirrhosis. According to defendants, the Court of Appeals should not have considered whether evidence supported this particular allegation because plaintiff conceded during oral argument in the Court of Appeals that there was only one issue in this case, based on a different allegation, viz.: whether Dr. Porter negligently failed to perform or to obtain a liver biopsy. If defendants are correct, the Court of Appeals erred when it reinstated the verdict because plaintiff withdrew from appellate review the one allegation for which that court found supporting evidence: the allegation that Dr. Porter negligently failed to diagnose plaintiff's cirrhosis. The effect of defendants' argument is that the failure by the Court of Appeals to accept the concession is an error of law. Defendants rely on the following remarks made by plaintiff's counsel during oral argument in the Court of Appeals: The case was submitted to the jury on three specifications of negligence.    As the defendants point out, correctly, the latter two allegations, the failure to diagnose allegations, are really allegations of the results. The failure was to do a liver biopsy.    So we're really talking here about a single issue: Was there sufficient evidence that a liver biopsy should have been done, that a liver biopsy was required by the standard of care, to submit the case to the jury on all three allegations of negligence. On their face, these remarks mean what defendants say they mean: Plaintiff's counsel conceded that the sole issue was whether the evidence supported the allegation that Dr. Porter negligently failed to perform or to obtain a liver biopsy. Plaintiff's counsel, however, did not explicitly withdraw or abandon plaintiff's assignment of error  during oral argument or otherwise. [3] As previously stated, plaintiff assigned error to the trial court's ruling, on all three allegations, that there was no evidence that Dr. Porter's conduct fell below the standard of care. Remarks by plaintiff's counsel during oral argument in the Court of Appeals characterized the record, but the Court of Appeals (and this court) properly look beyond that characterization  at least absent an explicit withdrawal of the assignment of error, and perhaps even then  to determine whether the record supports the relief requested in the assignment of error. See Shop. Centers v. Stand. Growth Prop., 265 Or. 405, 498 P.2d 781, 509 P.2d 1189 (1973) (court disregarded a concession after it examined the record and concluded that the evidence was inconsistent with the concession). Absent an explicit withdrawal of an assignment of error, [4] we do not construe remarks at oral argument as defeating a request for relief when the record supports the relief requested in the assignment of error. We turn to defendants' challenge to the sufficiency of the allegation that Dr. Porter negligently failed to diagnose plaintiff's cirrhosis.