Court Opinion

ID: 9698644
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:56:31.583482+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:42.526521
License: Public Domain

ROGERS, Associate Judge,
dissenting to Part II A:
The majority holds that Mrs. Binker met her burden of proof to show conscious pain and suffering. See majority opinion Part II A. The only relevant evidence before the jury was that after the truck hit the guard rail it traveled a distance, and eventually turned onto its side and skidded to a halt approximately ninety-eight feet from the guard rail, and the deputy medical examiner’s testimony that Mr. Binker’s death was not instantaneous. No evidence was offered that Mr. Binker, who had fallen through an open door when the truck turned over and was partly pinned underneath the truck in a face down position, was conscious at any time after the truck turned over. Nor was there any evidence that he had suffered any injury prior to that time, and the medical testimony contradicted any suggestion that Mr. Binker was alive at the time the fire started. Under the majority’s opinion, proof of injury where death was not instantaneous constitutes sufficient evidence of conscious pain *865and suffering to survive a directed verdict. In my view, this possibility-of-life threshold assumes consciousness in fact, and fails to provide guidance for evaluating the worth of any conscious pain and suffering and, henc.e, invites verdicts based on speculation. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
“Conjecture will not suffice” to establish conscious pain and suffering of the decedent. 2 S. SPEISER, RECOVERY FOR WRONGFUL Death § 14:10 (2d ed. 1975). The plaintiff has the burden of showing conscious pain, and although it may be inferred from the type of injury, the burden is heavy. Thus, “evidence of movement, moaning and groaning, and clenching and unclenching of hands by the decedent has been held too speculative to raise a jury question as to conscious suffering.” Id. (citing Fialkow v. DeVoe Motors, Inc., 359 Mass. 569, 270 N.E.2d 798 (1971)) (evidence of grasping, gurgling, heavy breathing, and a very faint noise coming from decedent after he was injured); Carr v. Arthur D. Little, Inc., 348 Mass. 469, 204 N.E.2d 466 (1965). Evidence that the decedent on several occasions during hospitalization responded to a spoken word by moving parts of his body also has been held insufficient to establish pain and suffering. 2 S. Speiser, supra, at § 14:10 (citing Parker v. McConnell Manufacturing Co., 40 A.D.2d 587, 334 N.Y. S.2d 586 (1972)). Indeed, expert testimony may be required on whether the victim was capable of consciousness and had the capacity to feel pain at the relevant time.1 Moreover, while circumstantial evidence may be sufficient to show conscious pain and suffering, such evidence would need to show at least that it was unlikely the victim would have been rendered unconscious pri- or to his final moments. See Ory v. Libersky, 40 Md.App. 151, 389 A.2d 922 (1970) (mere fact of consciousness after an accident does not inescapably lead to the con-elusion that pain is being suffered); 2 S. Speiser, supra, at § 14:10.
Mrs. Binker offered no evidence of Mr. Binker’s consciousness. She relied heavily, and almost exclusively, on the testimony of the deputy medical examiner who performed an autopsy on Mr. Binker’s body the day after the accident and testified that he was “uncertain” whether Mr. Binker would have survived his serious injuries, but conceded, in response to a question by Mrs. Binker’s attorney, that had the fire not occurred, there wag a remote chance of survival. Neither the deputy medical examiner nor any other witness testified that Mr. Binker was or could have been, from a medical standpoint, conscious between the time he sustained fractures from the impact of the truck turning over and the explosion and fire which occurred almost immediately after the truck had come to a stop. The deputy medical examiner testified Mr. Binker died of multiple fractures, and internal injuries caused by the fractures and extensive thermal burns, but that no carbon monoxide was found in his blood, lungs or the trachea-bronchi that feeds into the lungs, facts which would generally indicate the absence of life at the time the fire started. A passenger riding with Mr. Binker testified that he did not talk to Mr. Binker or see him move once the truck turned over, and thought Mr. Binker had fallen out of the truck when it turned over. Because there was no evidence, direct or circumstantial, of conscious pain and suffering, the court erred in submitting that issue to the jury.

. See generally 2 S. Spkisbr, supra, at § 14:9. Recovery is barred where death was instantaneous or practically so and no award should be made for any pain and suffering substantially contemporaneous with death or a mere incidence to it. Id. See also Northern Lights Motel, Inc. v. Sweaney, 561 P.2d 1176, 1190 (Alaska 1977) ("Recovery can be had only for pain consciously experienced, and events subsequent to unconsciousness are not compensable.") (quoting Burrous v. Knotts, 482 S.W.2d 358, 363 (Tex. Civ. App. 1972)).