Court Opinion

ID: 9713075
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:06:52.536713+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:16.297821
License: Public Domain

CRAVEN, P. J., dissenting: The verdicts in this case are supported by opinion evidence from the treating physician and from a general practitioner testifying in response to hypothetical questions. Both expressed the view that there was a causal connection, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, between the trauma of the accident of February 14, 1964, and the ultimate death of Joseph Manion on February 5, 1965. This medical opinion evidence was based upon the course of the decedent’s physical health following treatments begun two days after the accident, as well as upon the factors discussed in the majority opinion, and upon the medical belief that the accident might have caused an aggravation of certain of the degenerative processes present in the decedent’s body as shown by the autopsy and the testimony of the pathologist based upon the autopsy performed by another. The opinion evidence, as such, cannot be faulted in this case, for that evidence is couched in language and terms that reviewing courts in Illinois have accepted as evidence. See Clifford-Jacobs Forging Co. v. Industrial Commission, 19 Ill2d 236, 166 NE2d 582; Smith v. Illinois Valley Ice Cream Co., 20 Ill App2d 312,156 NE2d 361. The majority opinion equates these expressions of medical opinion with an absence of evidence and characterizes them as a “naked opinion,” concluding that they are devoid of any foundation. I agree that the foundation for these ultimate opinions has been badly fractured by the findings of the autopsy report and the other items discussed in the majority opinion. Indeed, I might even agree that the foundation is so weakened as not to be sufficient to sustain the verdicts which the jury rendered. Accordingly, as I view the record, remandment for a new trial is the proper disposition of this case. The recent opinion of the Supreme Court in Pedrick effects a substantial change in a vital area of Illinois law. It is a far-reaching change but the new rules as expressed in Pedrick have not been properly applied to this case as I view this record and the expressions in Pedrick. There is some factual residual basis for the doctors’ opinions and there is no showing that additional evidence could not be developed which would cure the defect in the present foundation testimony on which these opinions are based. The real problem in this case is that the verdicts are against the manifest weight of the evidence. My colleagues employ a doctrine in this case which should be employed only when there is no substantial factual dispute between the parties and when a remandment for a new trial would be an empty judicial gesture. Pedrick leaves in full force and undisturbed the former rule that a verdict against the manifest weight of the evidence should be set aside and a new trial granted. The Supreme Court, in Pedrick, stated: “We have rather carefully preserved the distinction between the evidentiary situation which will require a new trial (verdict against the manifest weight of the evidence Lau v. West Towns Bus Co., 16 Ill2d 442, 451, cert den 361 US 127) and that justifying direction of a verdict or judgment n. o. v. There is, in our judgment, excellent reason for so differentiating to be found, in the radically different results of allowance of the two motions, and we believe a more nearly conclusive evidentiary situation ought to be required before a verdict is directed than is necessary to justify a new trial. It is not our intention by this opinion to alter this concept. . . .” In a case strikingly similar to the instant case, the weakening of the foundation for the doctors’ opinions on causation was held to require a new trial. In Butler v. Palm, 36 Ill App2d 351, 184 NE2d 633, the court considered a doctor’s testimony that plaintiff’s meningoencephalitis could be causally related to injury. The doctor had based his testimony on the assumption that the brain or spinal cord had been injured. There was no evidentiary basis for that assumption. It was held that the evidence should not have been admitted but the case was remanded for a new trial. It cannot be said, in this case, that all of the evidence, viewed most favorably to the plaintiff, so overwhelmingly favors the defendant that no contrary verdict based on this evidence could ever stand. This record involves an evidentiary situation which requires a new trial, and I would remand for that purpose.