Court Opinion

ID: 9794910
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:13:56.257998+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:22:19.987583
License: Public Domain

CALLISTER, Justice
(dissenting).
Under the circumstances of this case, it was prejudicial error for the trial court to refuse to allow the jury to take the x-ray negatives to the jury room, when they were permitted to take the plaintiff’s exhibits of Polaroid prints that were essentially identical to two of the plaintiff’s x-ray negatives. The trial court considered the Polaroid prints as independent photographs and not photographs of the corresponding x-rays. However, the record reveals that the Polaroid films which are a positive print rather than a negative were essentially identical to the plaintiff’s x-rays.
There was a serious dispute among the expert witnesses as to the proper interpretation of the various x-ray films. The plaintiff argued that his x-rays indicated a ruptured disc, a consequence of the accident. The defendant claimed that his x-rays revealed that the plaintiff suffered from an osteoarthritis condition that was independent of the'accident!
There was no meaningful distinction between the Polaroid prints and the x-ray negatives; nor was there any indication that the jury would be more competent to interpret a photograph of the spine than a similar x-ray. On the contrary, the withholding of the x-ray negatives and the submission of the Polaroid prints, which were buttressed by the testimony of plaintiff’s expert as revealing a ruptured disc, could have created a prejudicial inference as to the admissibility and importance of the excluded exhibits.