Court Opinion

ID: 9744501
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:04:49.672745+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:49.717524
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE BOWMAN, specially concurring in part and dissenting in part: I respectfully dissent in part. I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the testimony of defendant’s accident reconstruction expert, Mark Strauss, amounts to harmless error. The majority argues that the totality of the evidence in this matter excluding Strauss’s testimony results in a conclusion that “the jury’s verdict would not have been different if Strauss had been barred from testifying.” 341 Ill. App. 3d at 316. I believe the majority incorrectly assumes that, in the absence of Strauss’s testimony, the outcome of the trial was certain to favor defendant. The central issue in dispute is whether there exists a causal connection between the aggravation of plaintiffs injury, which required surgery, and the parties’ car accident. In the absence of Strauss’s testimony, the evidence pertinent here consists of the testimony of two expert physicians with conflicting opinions on the central issue in controversy. Dr. Wright opined that, at the time of the May 6 MRI, plaintiff was not a surgical candidate. Then, after the accident, plaintiff reported a significant worsening of her symptoms. Upon reviewing the July 23 MRI, Wright noticed there was a dramatic worsening of the disc protrusion at the L4-L5 level. Wright testified that there was a causal connection between the accident and the worsening of plaintiffs injury. He stated: “[S]he was doing reasonably well and holding her own up until the time of this reported car accident. And it was only after the accident occurred that she reported the dramatic worsening of her symptomatology. That would seem to correlate well with what we saw in terms of changes in the MRI. And predicated on that history I would have to believe that it coincided with the accident.” Wright continued that, more likely than not, the worsening symptoms were a result of the car accident. On cross-examination, as the majority notes, Wright stated that common sense would seem to dictate that a lower impact speed of the vehicles would correlate with a lower probability of injury occurring to the passengers. He also stated that based on the lack of perceivable damage to the vehicles the accident appeared to be a low-speed impact. However, Wright qualified his answer regarding the possible inferences that could be drawn from the lack of damage to the vehicle by stating that he did not know what kind of damage to expect from the accident. In addition, on redirect examination, plaintiffs counsel posed a hypothetical to Wright based on plaintiffs testimony that her car moved forward one-half to a full car length when she was hit from behind. The question asked: if plaintiff was unexpectedly thrust forward against her seat belt when the vehicle came to a rest, would that force cause the kind of trauma that was present in the July 23 MRI? Wright responded that such forward movement and then sudden snap back would probably be adequate to cause plaintiff’s disc to herniate. Wright also opined that some patients who incur significant trauma may take days to experience a herniated disc. Contrary to Wright’s testimony, Dr. Delheimer testified that he believed that there was no significant difference between the May 6 MRI and the July 23 MRI. He opined that the condition of plaintiffs disc protrusion at the L4-L5 level on July 23 was basically the same as it was back in May. Based on his review of the damage to the vehicles, he found it hard to believe that the accident was a material factor in plaintiffs need for surgery or her worsening symptoms. However, on cross-examination, Delheimer admitted that he did not know what movement occurred with respect to plaintiffs body at the point of impact and immediately thereafter. We will reverse a trial court’s ruling regarding the admissibility of an expert’s opinion when the error was prejudicial or the result of the trial was materially affected. See Turner v. Williams, 326 Ill. App. 3d 541, 553 (2001). In Hiscott v. Peters, 324 Ill. App. 3d 114, 123 (2001), we considered the testimony of an accident reconstruction expert. There, we held that there was no concrete factual basis to support the expert’s opinion because there was insufficient physical evidence to provide him with the basic data needed to reconstruct an automobile accident. Hiscott, 324 Ill. App. 3d at 124. Thus, we held that the expert’s opinion that hypothesized how the parties’ automobile accident occurred amounted to pure speculation and could not assist the jury in understanding the evidence. Hiscott, 324 Ill. App. 3d at 124. After we concluded that the court erred in admitting the opinion testimony of the reconstruction expert, we stated that the expert’s testimony related directly to the central controversy of the case: how the collision took place, who was at fault, and the degree of fault assigned to the defendants. Hiscott, 324 Ill. App. 3d at 124. We then stated: “Accordingly, the admission of [the expert’s] testimony cannot be said to have had no effect on the outcome of the trial. We believe that this error may have tipped the scales with regard to the jrny’s assignment of liability between the defendants.” Hiscott, 324 Ill. App. 3d at 124. Thus, we reversed and remanded the matter for a new trial. Hiscott, 324 Ill. App. 3d at 124. I believe that Hiscott is controlling here. In a sweeping generalization, Strauss opined that, based on research in the field of biomedical engineering, a person cannot be injured in an accident in which the impacting vehicle is traveling at five to seven miles per hour. He further bolstered his conclusion by pointing to the “numerous studies and numerous tests” that supported it. Moreover, when defendant’s counsel asked Strauss if the impact from the accident was “sufficient to aggravate any preexisting condition that the plaintiff had in her back,” Strauss responded, “I do not believe that this can aggravate a preexisting condition.” (Emphasis added.) Then, when defendant’s counsel asked Strauss if the impact from the accident between the two vehicles here “would have been sufficient to cause any injury to the plaintiff in this case,” in a similar manner Strauss responded, “there is no way the back is going to be injured in this type of accident.” Thus, even Strauss’s response to a specific question about plaintiff was laced with generality. Strauss’s testimony related directly to the central controversy in this matter: whether there exists a causal connection between the aggravation of plaintiffs injury and the accident. The evidence on this central controversy hinged on the jury’s consideration of the conflicting opinions of two expert physicians and Strauss’s powerful, but impermissible, testimony. The admission of Strauss’s testimony cannot be said to have had no effect on the outcome of the trial. I believe that this error may have tipped the scales in defendant’s favor. Thus, I cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that in the absence of the error the outcome in this matter was certain to be the same. Accordingly, I would remand this case for a new trial.