Opinion ID: 1058744
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: admission of orientation instructions and nurse training materials

Text: The Defendants next assign error to the trial court's decision to admit evidence of Riverside's staff orientation instructions and nurse training materials from the Riverside School of Professional Nursing. In pre-trial motions, the Estate sought discovery of Riverside orientation materials on high fall-risk assessment or prevention and nurse training materials on that subject from Riverside School of Professional Nursing, arguing such information was relevant to notice under the punitive damage claim and to the standard of care. The trial court granted the Estate's motions to compel over the Defendants' objection. Following discovery, the Defendants filed a motion in limine again arguing that the orientation material and nursing school curriculum should not be admitted because they constituted private rules which cannot establish the standard of care, were otherwise irrelevant, and would be confusing to the jury. In response, the Estate asserted that these materials were not policies and procedures of the hospital, and would not be offered as the standard of care. The Estate maintained that standard of care testimony would come only from an expert, that the materials were relevant as establishing education, and would be corroborative of the expert's standard of care testimony. The trial court denied the Defendants' motion in limine. At trial, the Defendants again objected to the admission of the orientation and nursing school curriculum evidence when offered through the testimony of Flo A. Hicks and Debra Sullivan-Yates, respectively. The Estate again asserted that the evidence was not introduced as the standard of care, but as foundation and corroboration of its expert's testimony. [4] The trial court allowed the testimony of both witnesses. We review a trial court's evidentiary rulings applying an abuse of discretion standard. We will not overturn a trial court's exercise of its discretion in determining whether to admit or exclude evidence on appeal unless the evidence shows that the trial court abused its discretion. Hinkley v. Koehler, 269 Va. 82, 91, 606 S.E.2d 803, 808 (2005). While a trial court has no discretion to admit clearly inadmissible evidence, Norfolk & Western Ry. Co. v. Puryear, 250 Va. 559, 563, 463 S.E.2d 442, 444 (1995) (quoting Coe v. Commonwealth, 231 Va. 83, 87, 340 S.E.2d 820, 823 (1986)), a great deal must necessarily be left to the discretion of the court of trial, in determining whether evidence is relevant to the issue or not. Peacock Buick, Inc. v. Durkin, 221 Va. 1133, 1136, 277 S.E.2d 225, 227 (1981) (internal quotation marks omitted). We first address the Defendants' arguments that, pursuant to Virginia Ry. & Power Co. v. Godsey, 117 Va. 167, 83 S.E. 1072 (1915) and Pullen v. Nickens, 226 Va. 342, 310 S.E.2d 452 (1983), the evidence at issue was inadmissible because it served as private rules, which cannot establish the standard of care. We reject this argument for two reasons. First, Godsey and Pullen involved policies and procedures that employees were expected to follow and as such were described as private rules. Godsey, 117 Va. at 168-70, 83 S.E. at 1072-73; Pullen, 226 Va. at 349-51, 310 S.E.2d at 456-57. In this case, the evidence of the staff orientation instruction and nursing curriculum, although dealing with the issue of fall-risk assessment and prevention, were not hospital policies or procedures of the type involved in Godsey and Pullen. More importantly, it was clear throughout this proceeding that the trial court ruled, and the Estate agreed, that the evidence in question would not be admitted to establish the standard of care. That limitation was repeated during the admission of the evidence and the jury was instructed that the standard of care for Nurse Green's actions could be established only through expert testimony. In addition, the Estate's expert witness, Jenvey, testified that the orientation material and nursing instruction were among the materials she consulted in formulating her opinion on the standard of care. The Defendants did not object to Jenvey's reference to and reliance on this evidence. [5] Furthermore, Nurse Green, who testified after Hicks and Sullivan-Yates, and before Jenvey, stated that she had attended the Riverside orientation, described the contents of the orientation, and testified that her nursing education entailed a general nursing curriculum. Considering this record, we cannot say the trial court abused its discretion in admitting evidence of Riverside's orientation materials and the nursing school curriculum on high fall-risk assessment and prevention. Under the trial court's rulings, the evidence at issue was not offered to establish the standard of care. Rather, the jury was instructed to rely on the expert testimony regarding the standard of care. There was no objection to the relevancy of the evidence when the Estate's expert testified she referred to it in formulating her opinion on the standard of care, and similar evidence was admitted through the testimony of Nurse Green.