Court Opinion

ID: 9704566
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:40:13.648318+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:03.447169
License: Public Domain

Todd, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur in the result. The settlement amount, in my judgment, represents the low range of jury verdict which would be sustained without additur if the case had been properly prepared and tried.
However, I cannot agree that the actions of the defendant attorney in this case constitute a judgment decision which properly should not be subject to a malpractice claim. Judgment involves a reasoned process which presumes the accumulation of all available pertinent facts to arrive at the reasoned judgment. Here, defendant did little or nothing to accumulate all of the pertinent facts necessary to make an evaluation of plaintiffs’ claim. His failure to properly review with his own medical witnesses the effect of the existence of certain calcium deposits in the injured area was particularly devastating to the deposition evidence of his. own medical witness. Defense counsel had ascertained the importance of this evidence and by cross-examination had virtually destroyed the causation opinion of plaintiffs’ medical expert. Proper preparation would have minimized, if not precluded, the effect of such cross-examination.
*171Defendant handled this entire matter in a careless, ineffectual way. He is fortunate that defense counsel committed to the settlement virtually the entire reserve of the insurance carrier. However, this evaluation of the claim, as indicated previously, represents the low range of jury awards. If this case would have required judicial additur if it were a jury verdict, I would have no hesitancy in reversing the judgment entered herein.
Mr. Justice Otis took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.