Court Opinion

ID: 9559732
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:34:44.227557+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:35.861448
License: Public Domain

*643HENRIOD, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. By the simple and easy device of asserting that the testimony of one Mrs. Hopkins, practical nurse, was not prejudicial, the main opinion virtually abolishes the rules of evidence relating to proving value of services rendered by others, when elicited by means of a hypothetical question. The opinion in effect rules that the answer of either an expert or non-expert witness to a hypothetical question, objectionable as to form, content and character of witness to whom put, is unobjectionable because such answer is not prejudicial. It establishes a precedent in the opinion of the writer that will return to plague us, and which will result in future fine distinction, apologetic attempt to explain, or outright reversal. It would appear that henceforth the practitioner need not hesitate, in calling almost anyone, as an expert or non-expert, to answer a hypothetical question, objectionable in form and content, as to the value of services rendered by another, irrespective as to place rendered. Such evidence would be unobjectionable in the light of this decision because not prejudicial. The opinion, it is believed, points up the danger inherent in terminology, which too frequently may be a monster that, by nibbling at our principles well might consume them all.
Careful analysis of this opinion reflects a decision based on many assumptions. Among others, the opinion assumes, that since Mrs. Hopkins knew about values in Provo, the-county seat (a thriving industrial and commercial center1 with thousands of people) the same values must obtain in Lake Point (an almost uninhabited agricultural area many miles away) ; that since our statute (104-14-7) says
“The court must * * * disregard any error * * * which does not affect the substantial rights of the parties”,
the error committed here of necessity must not have affected substantial rights; that since Mrs. Hopkins’ testi*644mony, if believed, would have justified a larger verdict, the jury
“plainly did not base their verdict on the evidence of Mrs. Hopkins at all”;
that although the jury thus ignored Mrs. Hopkins, it may have paid attention to- her because
“it would comport with common sense and reason to allow the jury the latitude to infer from her testimony that the charges she personally made were the ordinary, usual and reasonable ones”
and that “Mrs. Hopkins was properly permitted to- testify” and that “her testimony is not entirely incompetent and valueless”; that since counsel for defendant failed to cross-examine Mrs. Hopkins, on inadmissible testimony, which he had a perfect and lawyer like right not to- do, he must have been derelict in some undefined duty to cure the error committed; that since
“a reversal would serve no useful purpose except to further delay payment to this elderly lady of money to which a jury has found that she was justly entitled”,
the jury couldn’t possibly have found otherwise and a new one could not possibly arrive at a different result.
Let us look at the record unsympathetically. The respondent called Mrs. Hopkins, a practical nurse with 27 years experience, to testify. It does not appear whether she had heard the other witnesses testify as to what respondent did or did not do in the way of furnishing services. Over the repeated and strenuous objections of counsel for appellant, all overruled by the trial court, she was allowed to answer the following hypothetical question;
“In the event you were called into a case where an aged person was bedridden and you had to give them a service of bathing them and changing their bedding and getting their meals and giving them their medicine and watching them through the day would you have an opinion as to what the charge would be?”
*645She answered that she would charge $7 per day for one patient or $50 per week for two, in addition to her board, room and laundry. Appellant’s counsel moved to strike such testimony, but the trial court insisted on admitting it. On motion for new trial the admission of such testimony was strongly urged as error, and in a memorandum decision the trial judge frankly admitted that he had committed error in permitting this testimony to stand, adding, that he felt appellant was not prejudiced because, considering her testimony, the jury could have rendered a verdict for a much larger amount and therefore “could not have considered for any purpose the questioned testimony”.
This dissent agrees with the trial court that admitting such testimony was error, but does not agree it was unobjectionable. If Mrs. Hopkins be treated as a non-expert, her testimony was inadmissible for the reason that it cannot be elicited by way of a hypothetical question. 20 Am. Jur. 647, Sec. 774. If she be treated as an expert, her testimony was equally inadmissible, since her answer was not responsive to a proper hypothetical question, she having testified only as to what she would charge for her services in an unidentified community — quite obviously having no probative value as to the usual charge in a designated community by persons having her qualifications. For these reasons alone her testimony was inadmissible.
Furthermore, the testimony well may have been inadmissible because of the form of the hypothetical question. It failed to include facts adduced at the trial and included facts not in evidence. Nothing appeared therein as to whether the charge was customary in the community involved. Love v. Richardson, Mo. App., 61 S. W. 2d 220. No reference was made as to a division of time between caring for an ailing husband, and simultaneously caring for an ailing brother and an ailing sister-in-law. On the other hand the question included watching of the patient through the day, a fact which is completely negatived by the evi*646dence. Although we have said in Johanson v. Huntsman, 60 Utah 402, 209 P. 197, that if a litigant’s theory is fairly incorporated therein, a hypothetical question properly may include fewer facts than those adduced at trial, it is urged that the question put in this case involves a deviation from fact similar to that adverted to by us in Caperon v. Tuttle, 100 Utah 476, 116 P. 2d 402, 135 A. L. R. 1399, and should constitute prejudicial error. See also 20 Am. Jur. 662, Sec. 788.
Although the majority opinion says that Mrs. Hopkins’ testimony was not entirely incompetent and valueless, and that
“Mrs. Hopkins was properly permitted to testify as to how she would evaluate the services described to her in terms of what she would charge for similar work”,
the authorities do not seem to bear out such assertions, and her testimony seems clearly to be inadmissible. We therefore meet head-on the remaining question as to whether the testimony was prejudicial. If the testimony given by Mrs. Hopkins, in answer to the hypothetical question put to her in this case, is not prejudicial, it is difficult to conceive how any response to any hypothetical question by any witness, expert or non-expert, could be prejudicial. We recognize the principle that the trial court’s ruling on the matter of prejudice has an inviolate sanctity unless such ruling appears reasonably to affect the substantial rights of a party, but can we subscribe to a principle that says error is not prejudicial simply because a trial judge says it is not? The only evidence introduced as to value was Mrs. Hopkins’ inadmissible testimony. The record reveals repeated and strenuous objections thereto by counsel, and repeated overruling of such objections by the trial judge, who insisted on admitting the testimony. This well may have underscored and emphasized her testimony adding particular significance thereto. It is reasonable to believe that the veniremen may have felt that the court’s insistence on plac*647ing such testimony before them magnified and emphasized its importance, requiring that it be given greater weight, in which event there is no question but what appellant’s substantial rights were affected.
Lest we establish a precedent for the future which seriously might interfere with the substantial rights of litigants by use of the easy and magic words “not prejudicial”, in this case we should do it the hard way and return it for a new trial by employing the difficult and unsympathetic word “prejudicial” which the writer believes more nearly describes the procedure adopted for the introduction of Mrs. Hopkins’ testimony. Jensen v. Utah Ry. Co., 72 Utah 366, 270 P. 349.