Court Opinion

ID: 9536391
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:59:03.241+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:54:24.673020
License: Public Domain

RABINOWITZ, Justice
(concurring).
Over forty years ago Judge Learned Hand characterized the hypothetical question rule as “the most horrific and grotesque wen on the fair face of justice.” 1 This court’s opinion may well signal the wen’s obliteration.
Under the majority’s decision the necessity of propounding a hypothetical question to an expert witness (not possessing personal knowledge) is obviated when the facts upon which the expert premised his opinion .are reasonably clear to the jury. In my view, this court should have adopted a rule •dispensing with the requirement of hypothetical questions in all instances, unless the trial judge in his discretion requires its use or counsel elect to use the hypothetical form.
The subject of hypothetical questions has been the source of considerable commentary. In discussing the future of the hypothetical question, Dean Wigmore stated:
Its abuses have become so obstructive and nauseous that no remedy short of extirpation will suffice. It is a logical necessity, but a practical incubus; and logic must here be sacrificed. After all, Law (in Mr. Justice Holmes’ phrase) is much more than Logic. It is a strange irony that the hypothetical question, which is one of the few truly scientific features of the rules of Evidence, should have become that feature which does most to disgust men of science with the law of Evidence.
The hypothetical question, misused by the clumsy and abused by the clever, has in practice led to intolerable obstruction of truth. In the first place, it has artificially clamped the mouth of the expert witness, so that his answer to a complex question may not express his actual opinion on the actual case. This is because the question may be so built up and contrived by counsel as to represent only a partisan conclusion.
In the second place, it has tended to mislead the jury as to the purport of actual expert opinion. This is due to the same reason. In ihe third place, it has tended to confuse the jury, so that its employment becomes a mere waste of time and a futile obstruction.2
Dean Wigmore’s solution to the problem is to exempt:
* * * the offering party from the requirement of using the hypothetical form; by according him the option of using it, — both of these to be left to the trial Court’s discretion; and by permitting the opposing party, on cross-examination, to call for a hypothetical specification of the data which the witness has used as the basis of the opinion. The last rule will give sufficient protection against a misunderstanding of the opinion, when any actual doubt exists.3
Dean Charles T. McCormick, in reaching the same conclusion as Dean Wigmore, offers the following solution:
The only remaining expedient is the one generally advocated, namely, that of dispensing with the requirement that *196the question be accompanied by a recital of an hypothesis, unless the proponent elects to use the hypothetical form, or unless the trial judge in his discretion shall require it. It will be for the cross-examiner to bring out if he so desires, the bases for the expert’s opinion.4
The views of Dean Wigmore and Dean McCormick are persuasive. In my opinion a rule similar to that urged by these authors and the other authorities referred to in this separate opinion would have been more appropriate.5
I concur with the majority opinion in all other aspects.

. Judge Learned Hand, New York Bar Ass’n “Lectures on Legal Topics” 1921-22 (New York 1926).

. n Wigmore, Evidence § 6S6 at 812 (3d ed. 1940).

. XI Wigmore, Evidence § 686 at 813 (3d od. 1940).

. Charles T. McCormick, “Some Observations Upon the Opinion Rule and Expert Testimony,” 23 Tex.L.R. 109, 129 (1945); See also McCormick, Evidence § 16 at 34 (1954). Rule 58, Uniform Rules of Evidence, provides:
Questions calling for tlie opinion of an expert witness need not be hypothetical in form unless the judge in his discretion so requires, but the witness may state his opinion and reasons therefor without first specifying data on which it is based as an hypothesis or otherwise; hut upon cross examination he may be required to specify such data.
Rule 409 of the Model Code of Evidence reads at 210:
An expert witness may state his relevant inferences from matters perceived by him or from evidence introduced at the trial and seen or heard by him or from his special knowledge, skill, experience or training, whether or not any such inference embraces an ultimate issue to be decided by the trier of fact, and he may state his reasons for such inferences and need not, unless the judge so orders, first specify, as an hypothesis or otherwise, the data from which he draws them; but he may thereafter during his examination or cross-examination be required to specify those data.
Note also N.Y. Civil Practice Law and Rules, Rule 4515 (1963), which provides:
Unless the court orders otherwise, questions calling for the opinion of an expert witness need not be hypothetical in form, and the witness may state his opinion and reasons without first specifying the data upon which it is based. Upon cross-examination, he may be required to specify the data and other criteria supporting the opinion.

. Note Dean Wigmore’s assertion in support of his argument for abolition of the hypothetical question rule that:
No partial limitation of its use seems feasible, by specific rules. Logically, there is no place to stop short; practically, any specific limitations would be more or less arbitrary, and would thus tend to become mere quibbles. II Wigmore, Evidence § 686 at 812-813 (3d ed. 1940).