Court Opinion

ID: 9952039
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-19 16:15:11.241526+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:44:30.042552
License: Public Domain

J-S47024-23

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

  CHANIYA NICHOLS AND CHRIS                    :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
  MCINTYRE, IN THEIR OWN RIGHT                 :        PENNSYLVANIA
  AND AS PARENTS AND NATURAL                   :
  GUARDIANS OF CAMRYN MCINTYRE,                :
  MINOR                                        :
                                               :
                       Appellants              :
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
  MAIN LINE HOSPITALS, INC., LAURA             :
  LASKEY, RIDDLE MEMORIAL                      :
  HOSPITAL, RIDDLE HEALTH CARE                 :
  ASSOCIATES D/B/A RIDDLE OB/GYN               :
  ASSOCIATES, AND JIE XU                       :   No. 1051 EDA 2023

        Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered June 26, 2023
      In the Court of Common Pleas of Delaware County Civil Division at
                          No(s): CV-2019-003149

BEFORE:      STABILE, J., KUNSELMAN, J., and STEVENS, P.J.E.*

MEMORANDUM BY KUNSELMAN, J.:                           FILED MARCH 19, 2024

       Plaintiffs, Chaniya Nichols and Chris McIntrye (“Parents”), in their own

right and on behalf of their son, Camryn McIntrye, appeal from the judgment

entered following a defense verdict in this medical-malpractice case. Parents

raise only evidentiary issues. Upon review, we affirm.

       Our disposition rests upon procedural grounds. Thus, we only briefly

discuss the underlying facts.         On July 6, 2018, Ms. Nichols gave birth to

Camryn at Riddle Memorial Hospital. Dr. Jie Xu, an obstetrician and employee

of the hospital, oversaw the delivery. When Camryn’s head emerged during

____________________________________________

* Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court.
J-S47024-23

the birth, his shoulders became stuck. Dr. Xu responded to the emergency

by applying a gentle, downward force on Camryn to free him from the birth

canal. As a result of the traumatic birth, Camryn suffered permanent palsy in

his left arm.

      In 2019, Parents (and Camryn, through them) sued Dr. Xu, the hospital,

and other persons for negligence and vicarious liablity. They alleged Dr. Xu

carelessly responded to the shoulder-lodging complication and injured Camyrn

in the process.

      The case proceeded to trial. The first question on the verdict slip was

whether Dr. Xu’s “conduct fell below the applicable standard of care?” Trial

Court Opinion, 6/22/23, at 3. The jurors responded “No.” Thus, they did not

answer the subsequent questions regarding causation and damages.

      Parents moved for post-trial relief, which the court denied. This timely

appeal followed.

      They raise four appellate issues, which we have reordered as follows:

      1.    Did the trial court err when it precluded Parents’ liability
            expert witness, Dr. Gary Brickner, from testifying that
            “excessive traction” or “excessive force” was used by Dr.
            Xu, despite that opinion being within his expert report?

      2.    Did the trial court err when it precluded Parents’ liability
            expert witness, Dr. Gary Brickner, from testifying that the
            use of any traction is below the applicable standard of care,
            despite that opinion being within his expert report?

      3.    Did the Trial Court err when it refused to limit the defense’s
            causation expert to general causation and, instead,
            permitted her to offer an opinion on specific causation in this
            case?

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      4.    Did the trial court err when it sustained defense counsel’s
            objection to Parents’ cross-examining Dr. Xu on prior cases,
            where Dr. Xu’s causation expert was precluded and limited
            in offering her opinions into evidence at trial?

See Parents’ Brief at 6-7. We address issues one and two together and issues

three and four together.

                                 Issues 1 & 2

      Parents’ first two issues challenge the trial court’s ruling that some of

the breach-of-duty opinions of their expert, Dr. Brickner, exceeded the scope

of his expert report and the exclusion of those opinions from evidence. As the

phrasing of these two issues suggests, however, Parents fundamentally

misunderstand the role of an appellate court when reviewing evidentiary

rulings. They ask, “Did the trial court err when it precluded” Dr. Brickner from

offering certain opinions on how he believed that Dr. Xu had breached the

duty of care. Id. at 6 (emphasis added). In other words, Parents ask whether

the trial court made an incorrect judgment concerning the contents of Dr.

Brickner’s report.

      At the outset of their brief, Parents acknowledge our standard of review

for evidentiary rulings and properly define it. They state, “if the challenged

ruling involved a discretionary act, the appellate court reviews the disposition

of the new trial motion relative to that act for abuse of discretion.” Id. at 3

(quoting Passarello v. Grumbine, 29 A.3d 1158, 1163 (Pa. Super. 2011))

(some punctuation omitted). “Abuse of discretion is not merely an error of

judgment; instead, it requires that either (1) the law be overridden or

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misapplied . . . (2) the judgment exercised be manifestly unreasonable, or (3)

the judgment be the result of partiality, prejudice, bias or ill-will.” Id. at 2-3

(quoting Fanning v. Davne, 795 A.2d 388, 393 (Pa. Super. 2002)) (some

punctuation omitted).

      Despite defining the standard of review correctly, Parents do not make

an abuse-of-discretion argument. In particular, they disregard the standard’s

prohibition – i.e., that an abuse of discretion “is not merely an error of

judgment.” Fanning, 795 A.2d at 393. (emphasis added). As the Fanning

Court stated, “We emphasize that an abuse of discretion may not be found

merely because the appellate court might have reached a different conclusion,

but requires a showing of manifest unreasonableness, or partiality, prejudice,

bias, or ill-will, or such lack of support as to be clearly erroneous.” Id.

      In crafting their appellate arguments regarding the excluded opinions of

Dr. Brickner, Parents neglect our standard of review. See Parents Brief at 36-

39.   Instead of identifying which type of abuse the trial court supposedly

committed by refusing to allow Dr. Brickner to opine as Parents desired, they

attempt to relitigate the evidentiary issues, as if our standard of review were

de novo.

      Parents offer their view of Dr. Brickner’s report and announce that they

believe it “includes a detailed discussion of traction and the force applied and

when and whether the force causes injury and the degree of injury.”           Id. at

36. Parents then reproduce the expert report and, without discussing the trial

court’s rationale, simply declare, “Dr. Brickner’s trial testimony using the term

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‘excessive’ is fairly within the four corners of this report.” Id. at 37. This is

quintessentially a de novo argument.

      Their argument for the second appellate issue is even terser. Parents

claim “the trial court committed prejudicial error of law and abuse of discretion

when it . . . precluded Dr. Brickner from testifying that the use of any traction

. . . is below the applicable standard of care and struck any such testimony,

when this is also fairly within the four corners of his expert report.” Id. at 39.

This single-sentence argument, lacking any development or consideration of

the trial court’s reasoning, is also de novo. Essentially, Parents would have

us, as appellate judges, to decide these evidentiary issues anew, without any

deference to the trial judge’s rationale.

      Under our standard of review for evidentiary issues such as these, it is

incumbent upon appellants to explain what type of abuse discretion the trial

court allegedly made in ruling upon the scope of the expert’s report. In other

words, why was the trial court’s analysis of Dr. Brickner’s expert report so

manifestly unreasonable as to constitute abuse? What logical fallacy did the

trial court commit, or where was the hole in its reasoning? Parents’ de novo

arguments on these two issue do not answer those questions. Rather, they

invite this Court to substitute its judgment of the scope of the expert’s report

for that of the trial court. This we may not do.

      Even if we disagreed with a trial court’s judgment regarding the scope

of Dr. Brickner’s report and which opinions were fairly found within it, we have

long held that an “abuse of discretion is not merely an error of judgment, but

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rather a misapplication of the law or an unreasonable exercise of judgment.”

Johnson v. Johnson, 222 A.3d 787, 789 (Pa. Super. 2019).             Thus, it is

insufficient to convince us that “the lower tribunal reached a decision contrary

to the decision that the appellate court would have reached.” B.B. v. Dep't

of Pub. Welfare, 118 A.3d 482, 485 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2015) (some punctuation

omitted). Instead, Parents must persuade us that one of the three abuses of

discretion occurred. See Fanning, supra.

      As we have repeatedly explained, “to mount an abuse-of-discretion

attack against the trial court’s [ruling, appellants] needed to demonstrate how

the trial court’s ruling overrode the law; was manifestly unreasonable; or the

product of bias, prejudice, ill-will or partiality.” Commonwealth v. Rogers,

259 A.3d 539, 541 (Pa. Super. 2021), appeal denied, 280 A.3d 866 (Pa.

2022). Parents make no such contentions when arguing either of their first

two appellate issues. As such, they do “not contend, much less persuade us,

that the trial court overrode the law; made a manifestly unreasonable

decision; or was motivated by bias, prejudice, or ill will.” Rogers, 259 A.3d

at 542.

      Because Parents fail to persuade us that an abuse of discretion occurred,

we dismiss their first two appellate issues as meritless.

                                 Issues 3 & 4

      Next, Parents ask (a) whether the trial court abused its discretion by

allowing Defendants’ expert on causation to testify and (b) whether Parents’

counsel could cross-examine Dr. Xu regarding prior court appearances of the

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Defendants’ causation expert. Both of these issues involve evidence about

the negligence element of causation. Preliminarily, we observe that the jury

did not reach the element of causation.1 Instead, it found Dr. Xu’s conduct

conformed to the standard of care when he dislodged Carmyn from the birth

canal.

         Therefore, we must consider whether these issues have become moot,

because we “will not decide moot questions.” In re Gross, 382 A.2d 116,

119 (Pa. 1978).       See also Sierra Club v. Pennsylvania Public Utility

Comm., 731 A.2d 133 (Pa. 1999) (holding that courts will dismiss an appeal

as moot when no actual case or controversy remains pending).               Mootness

arises “from events occurring after the lawsuit has gotten under way —

changes in the facts or in the law — which allegedly deprive the litigant[s] of

the necessary stake in the outcome.” Public Defenders Office of Venango

Count v. Venango County Court of Common Pleas, 893 A.2d 1275, 1279

(Pa. 2006).

         Here, even if the trial court abused its discretion on either or both of the

two remaining issues, we would not grant Parents appellate relief. Any abuse

of discretion regarding Defendants’ causation expert can no longer prejudice

Parents’ case, because we did not award Parents a new trial on liablity, i.e.,

whether Dr. Xu breached his duty of care.
____________________________________________

1 The four elements of negligence are “(1) a duty, (2) a breach of that duty,

(3) a causal connection between the conduct and the resulting injury, and (4)
actual damages.” Toro v. Fitness International LLC, 150 A.3d 968, 976–
77 (Pa. Super. 2016).

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      In short, because Parents’ first two appellate issues are meritless, the

element of causation is now irrelevant. Neither party has a real stake in the

outcome of Parents’ evidentiary-causation challenges, because Parents cannot

establish breach of duty. Regardless of how we resolve the causation issues,

Parents cause of action fails.

      Thus, we dismiss Parents’ third and fourth issues as moot.

      Judgment affirmed.

      Judge Stabile concurs in result.

      P.J.E. Stevens concurs in result.

Date: 3/19/2024

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