Court Opinion

ID: 9572075
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:38:07.273337+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:31:28.884522
License: Public Domain

ANDERSON, Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent. The majority concludes the “most probable” standard required to prove causation is not the standard to be applied in determining the admissibility of evidence of future damages. I disagree.
The trial court permitted Dr. Galloway to testify as to four possible scenarios1 regarding Pearson’s required future medical care:
*534Scenario One: Continual monitoring of Pearson’s condition to prevent any more strictures and complications.
Scenario Two: If the duct restrictured, another cholangioplasty would need to be performed.
Scenario Three: If scenario two failed and surgery was required.
Scenario Four: If scenarios two and three failed, Pearson would need a full liver transplant.
A paradigm of medical mathematical endeavors is presented by the testimony of Dr. Douglas Olsen:
Q. [T]hat was common bile duct injury, wasn’t it?
A. That is correct.
Q. That patient also [had] a 20 to 30 percent chance 'oí restriction?
A. Yeah, depending on whose numbers, 15 to 20, like to use nice broad category.
Q. You said if it is 15 fíne, 35 fíne, you gave it 20 to 30?
A. Yeah, somewhere in that ballpark range.
Dr. Olsen’s testimony is juxtaposed to Dr. Galloway’s:
Q. Why will you need to keep checking her? Are we still worried about a stricture occurring?
A. The, the chances that the stricture can come back will, you know, be there for an indefinite amount of time. The percentage is based on, you know, what little factual data we have here. You know, from the, starting from the last time she had the tubes pulled out she probably has, you know, 25 to 30 percent chance of re-stricture rate and over the next five years following that.
Dr. Galloway declared Pearson’s condition will definitely require monitoring for the rest of her life. He opined there was a 25-30% chance of restricturing of the common bile duct, thus necessitating the need for at least scenario two. In discussing scenario four, Dr. Galloway stated much would have to go wrong before a liver transplant would be required. Yet, he could not say scenario four was certain not to happen. Dr. *535Bridges’s expert witness testified that in his opinion Pearson would never require a liver transplant.
There is no case in South Carolina supporting the holding of the majority in permitting the contested evidence on damages in this case. The majority cites Payton v. Kearse, 319 S.C. 188, 460 S.E.2d 220 (Ct.App.1995), Haltiwanger v. Barr, 258 S.C. 27, 186 S.E.2d 819 (1972), Green v. Catawba Power Co., 75 S.C. 102, 55 S.E. 125 (1906), and Martin v. Mobley, 253 S.C. 103, 169 S.E.2d 278 (1969), as support for the admission of the damages evidence. These cases do not address the issue involved in this litigation. Apodictically, the principles articulated by the cited precedent are recognized without question. Payton states the “most probable'rule” does not apply to expert testimony offered for reasons other than proof of proximate cause. Haltiwanger simply says “[fjuture damages do not need to be proved to a mathematical certainty.” Id. at 32, 186 S.E.2d at 821. Green mandates a charge that future damages must be proven with “reasonable certainty.” Despite an opinion emanating from a commentator, Martin is not dispositive in regard to the challenged evidence.
Academically, courts in this country are divided as to “the degree of certainty required for an award of future medical expenses.” 22 Am.Jur.2d Damages § 217 (1988). Some courts enunciate the test for recovery of damages for future medical care in terms of “probability” or “medical probability.” Id. § 219. Concomitantly, an injured party may recover future medical expenses where there has been expert testimony as to the probability of continued treatment and medication. Id. Other courts utilize terms of “reasonable probability,” “more probable than not,” or a closely synonymous phrase as the evidentiary yardstick for recovery of damages for future medical care. The rule espoused in the opinion of the majority is that the “most probable” standard is not efficacious in considering the admissibility of evidence of future damages. Admittedly, some courts do follow this approach by allowing evidence of future medical expenses to be bottomed and premised upon a “possibility.” Id. § 221.
The use of evidentiary scenarios embracing “possibilities” or mathematical percentages that violate the “most probable rule” constitutes “judicial lotto.” A welter of confusion results *536from the failure to apply the “most probable rule” to the admissibility of evidence on damages. The quintessential imbroglio involving the admissibility of evidence on damages is the nadir of the percentage factor. How low will the percentage factor go? In this case, it is “bench marked” at 20%. What about 5%? Is there an evidentiary “safety valve” to eliminate the rankest of verdict speculation?
The abandonment of the “most probable rule” as the test for admissibility of evidence on future medical expenses opens Pandora’s box to the vagaries of evidence having its etiology in uncertainty, ambiguity, and arbitrariness. The admissibility of this evidence obliterates the judicial equipoise inter sese plaintiff and defendant to the point of fundamental unfairness. A defendant should not be subjected to the vicissitudes of a damage verdict based upon gross speculation.
The rule adopted by the majority destroys the gatekeeper role of trial judges in guarding against the imposition of damages in violation of the “most probable rule.” The evisceration of the “most probable rule” in the damage arena will judicially blight the pristine concept of a fair and impartial verdict. A defendant stands mercilessly in the face of testimony emanating from a plaintiff who rings the jury “empathy bell.”
The retreat by the majority from established evidentiary standards leaves a gargantuan aperture in the presentation of “damage evidence” to the fact finder. This holding is a harbinger of “damage evidence obfuscation” in the field of damages. Indubitably, the appellate court will rue the day that a landmark rule was eliminated as a protective barrier against “verdict uncertainty.” In a utilitarian sense, parties will be at liberty to shape innumerable and unlimited scenarios as justification for future medical expenditures.
A plethora of policy considerations are triggered in this, decision. My concernment is that the integrity of the system will be at risk if there is a lack of a definite and certain rule in the area of admissibility of evidence on future medical expenses. Today we lift the hallowed bar against suppositional medical evidence to prove future medical expenses. The majority marches forth into the zone of fortuitous and undivinable admissibility.
*537I would hold the “most probable rule” is the standard for admissibility of evidence in regard to future medical expenses.

. All testimony beyond scenario one was objected to by Dr. Bridges on the grounds that it did not meet the "most probable to happen” *534standard and was inadmissible. The judge overruled the objection and allowed evidence of all four scenarios.