Opinion ID: 1604756
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Plaintiff also complains of the hypothetical question which defendant was permitted to pose to Dr. Graham in the deposition cross-examination.

Text: Plaintiff had told a nurse he was experiencing pain and numbness in his hand and arm. This information was given the doctor, who asked him about these symptoms. The doctor says plaintiff just brushed it off and replied that perhaps he had laid on it wrong. Dr. Graham was asked a hypothetical question which assumed plaintiff had denied complaining of pain or numbness in his hand or arm. It is claimed this was error because the record contains no evidence of such denial. There was no error here. Some leeway is permitted in hypothetical questions on cross-examination, and the trial court has considerable discretion in permitting a party to incorporate therein facts which the jury could find from the record evidence. Here the question fairly presented the nurse's notation of the patient's complaint and the examiner's liberal, but permissible, interpretation of what plaintiff said when questioned by the doctor concerning that complaint. Claimant's response to the doctor that perhaps he had laid on it wrong, while not a direct denial of pain, permits for the purpose of cross-examination the interpretation which defendant gave it. We hold defendant was entitled to incorporate in this hypothetical question his view of what the evidence showed in this regard. 31 Am.Jur.2d, section 60, page 566; 32 C.J.S. Evidence § 551, page 348; In re Austin's Estate, 194 Iowa 1217, 1222, 191 N.W. 73, 75; Olsen v. Corporation of New Melleray, 245 Iowa 407, 427, 60 N.W.2d 832, 844; Nelson v. Langstrom, 252 Iowa 965, 969, 108 N.W.2d 58, 60; Annotation, 71 A.L.R.2d 6, at pages 13, 15, 16. In the case of In Re Estate of Telsrow, 237 Iowa 672, 682, 22 N.W.2d 792, 798, we said, At least some latitude must be showed in the choice of facts stated in such a [hypothetical] question and the trial court has considerable discretion in ruling on an objection thereto. Contestants were entitled to frame the question according to their theory of the case, as their construction of the evidence showed the facts to be or as the jury would have a right to find them. We find no error in permitting the cross-examination objected to here.