Court Opinion

ID: 9790726
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:58:36.191853+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:31.162208
License: Public Domain

HODGES, Justice,
dissenting:
As the majority recognizes, plaintiffs case hinged on whether the defendant hospital’s Nurse Bowles should have known of the obvious incompetent treatment by Dr. Seal and should have acted to remedy the situation. However, I must disagree with the majority’s conclusion that some of the evidence of Dr. Seal’s prior conduct was inadmissible because it unfairly prejudiced the defendant.
Evidence of Dr. Seal’s prior conduct was relevant to the issue of whether Nurse Bowles should have questioned Dr. Seal’s competency and was negligent in not acting based on her knowledge of Dr. Seal’s prior conduct. The probative value of this evidence substantially outweighed any “danger of unfair prejudice.” See Okla.Stat. tit. 12, § 2403 (1991). Further, any prejudice to the defendant was cured by the trial judge’s limiting instruction at the time of admitting the evidence1 and by the jury instructions at the close of the evidence.
In appellee’s trial brief, it raised several other issues in its attempt to persuade the trial judge to grant a new trial, order a remittur, or grant a judgment notwithstanding the verdict. After a review of the record, I find no merit to appellee’s arguments and am convinced that the trial judge erred in granting a new trial.
For the above reasons, I would reverse the trial court’s order granting a new trial and enter judgment for the plaintiff in the amount of $650,000 — the $800,000 jury verdict less the $150,000 settlement.

. The trial judge instructed the juiy:
Ladies and gentlemen, these incidents [of Dr. Seal’s prior conduct] that are being testified about don’t have any relevance to the proof of what happened in this particular case, and I'm permitting this testimony only to show what was in the mind of the nurses and hospital personnel and how it may have, if in any way, or did affect or should have affected their actions. Now, you're the fact finders and you'll have to ultimately decide all these questions.