Court Opinion

ID: 9740568
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:37:22.374474+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:18.901915
License: Public Domain

Otis, Justice
(dissenting).
There is no evidence in this record that plaintiff will at any time require a fusion operation. Such procedure was neither contemplated nor recommended by any of the doctors. Indeed, his counsel acknowledged as much in the following colloquy:
“The Court: The doctor has not testified as to whether or not he has actually recommended that that [the fusion] be done in this case or not, is that right?
“Mr. Plunkett: No, your Honor, but this is a type of treatment for this particular type of injury.”
Nevertheless, counsel repeatedly urged the jury to award damages for the pain and suffering which such an operation would entail. He argued, among other things, as follows:
“He went on to tell you that the only surgical treatment that could tend to alleviate these symptoms, and all it would do would be to tend to alleviate the pain, was an operation known as a fusion. Now in addition he said that after the fusion he would have an immobility of these vertebrae, third and fourth vertebrae. They would be fused together, just like a nail going through them. It means that that portion of your back doesn’t bend any more.” (Italics supplied.)
In discussing the impact plaintiff’s injury would have on his employment prospects, counsel said to the jury:
“Now they [future employers] may say, ‘Well now, what can be done to help this boy with the pain and so on?’ He [plaintiff’s doctor] *228will have to tell them that the recommended surgical procedure is to operate on the lad and take the bone from his shin, (indicating), and cut him open in the back and put this bone in his third and fourth lumbar vertebrae and fuse it. They will say, ‘Well, then, Doctor, you mean that he will have no more impairment and his spine will be as good as new?’ And you heard Dr. Janes say that that would not be the case, that he would still have at least a ten percent impairment, because the bones are then fused and won’t bend, but that it won’t be so painful for him then when he has to move quickly, or lift something, or reach, and he won’t become so lame as he has been on many occasions when he has tried to do these things.” (Italics supplied.)
Later plaintiff again argued:
“* * * [Tjhe only thing that can be done to alleviate the pain in the lumbar spine is this operation.
“Now insofar as Gary is concerned, unless he has this operation to help relieve the pain, Dr. Janes testified his injury is permanent in the sense that it will continue on as it is, at least. It’s permanent.” (Italics supplied.)
Not content with these wholly unjustified references to the need for a fusion operation, plaintiff concluded by saying:
“Now as far as Gary is concerned, without this fusion, as Dr. Janes pointed out, this lad is going to have pain in his back.
“* * * But remember that he can’t come back to you. In five years, if the spinal fusion is performed — and this is a major operation, and those of us who are acquainted with it all know that it’s very serious surgery —if something should go wrong, he won’t be able to come back and say, ‘Well, folks, we didn’t take that into account in asking you for a verdict.’” (Italics supplied.)
While defendant did not specifically except to this line of argument, four previous objections to testimony describing such fusion procedures had been overruled and were assigned as grounds for a new trial.
*229To compound his error, counsel in arguing damages placed the following price tag on plaintiff’s right to lead a normal life:
“* * * Would it be worth $500 a year to you for one year? * * * You wouldn’t sell it for anything.”
To this argument defendant took exception. The trial court in its memorandum and the majority opinion acknowledge its impropriety.
Finally, without any support in the record and subject to defendant’s objection, the court charged the jury that plaintiff could recover for impaired earning capacity. Counsel in his argument suggested that plaintiff could normally be expected to earn $210,000 in his lifetime and that the 10-percent permanent partial back injury to which his doctor testified justified an award of $21,000 for this element of damages alone. This the court permitted notwithstanding the total absence of any testimony correlating the disability and the claimed impairment of earning capacity.
This case deals with a rear-end collision from which plaintiff unquestionably suffered an injury. Nevertheless, he had no serious immediate symptoms and those he ultimately experienced were largely subjective. He took part in a high school football celebration from the time of the accident at 3:30 in the afternoon until 10:30 that evening. Thereafter he successfully finished his school year, worked the following summer as a swimming instructor in a boys’ camp, and later drove to California and back uneventfully.
Under all these circumstances I submit that the verdict is so tainted by counsel’s invitation to consider prejudicial matters, wholly extraneous to the record, that only a new trial on damages can correct it. To hold otherwise is to permit plaintiff to profit from tactics which both the trial court and this court have condemned as unfair.