Court Opinion

ID: 9542696
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:37:27.010893+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:42.023406
License: Public Domain

MAUGHAN, Justice
(dissenting).
For the following reasons I dissent and would reverse for a new trial.
By a motion in limine plaintiff sought exclusion of evidence relating to :
1. Who is the father of the stillborn child.
2. Whether the plaintiff was or is on welfare.
3. The whereabouts of plaintiff’s children who are not residing with her.
4. Whether or why plaintiff gave her maiden name to defendant doctor’s nurse. The court granted the motion as to 1 and 2 and denied the same as to 3 and 4.
The record shows the defendant doctor was in court at the time this motion was made and heard the judge’s instructions concerning the excluded testimony. Yet, in answer to a question about two names appearing on his office chart, the defendant doctor responded:
The patient came to me first in the wintertime. The first I note of her name was different than Billie Jean Rex was in June at which time she had applied for welfare and was required to give her proper identification, and at this time I learned that her name was Betty Nelson and we had an illegitimate pregnancy as well.
At this juncture plaintiff moved for a mistrial, which was denied. After argument of counsel, the trial court changed its mind, overruling its previous order on the motion in limine, and said :
She is here claiming great mental anguish because of the loss of the child. I think the fact that it was an illegitimate child might very well have a bearing upon that very thing [damages]. Well, if I am wrong, I am wrong.
Later, counsel for one of the defendants directly questioned plaintiff:
Mrs. Nelson, you do not know the name of the father of this child, do you?
A. No, I do not.
Q. It is a person you met by chance at a bar one evening?
Plaintiff moved to strike the affirmative answer. The motion was denied.
It is my view that this line of questioning is improper for two reasons, the first being that it is in direct contravention of the court’s order on the motion in limine. The second, and more important, is that it is intrinsically highly prejudicial.
To hold as the trial court did, and this court does, that the sensibilities of a mother of a child bom out of wedlock are not shocked as seriously as those of a mother whose child is born in wedlock is to indulge in a highly speculative generality, a generality of which there is no proof, a generality devoid of proof, but rich in stigma, which accounts for its prejudicial nature. Life, and the law books, are full of examples in contradiction of such a generality. Such evidence is of no more probative value than is that which showed plaintiff to be on welfare.
In Dillon v. Wallace,1 the court addressed itself to similar extraneous evidence about the plaintiff’s family situation which was admitted to show mental anguish. Citing two California Supreme Court decisions ruling on prejudicial evidence, the court cites from one of them.
On strictly logical grounds it is, perhaps, difficult to say why a plaintiff should not be allowed to show every fact connected with his situation in life. One can conceive of innumerable factors in the life of every individual, and of his relation to others, which might be *1079thought to have some relevance to the extent of worry which would result in case of an injury to him. But logical relevancy is not the sole test of the admissibility of evidence. Certain kinds of evidence, although material to the issue, are excluded because of their tendency to mislead, confuse or prejudice the jury.
It is my view that such use of illegitimacy is also discriminatory.2 The prejudicial quality of this evidence would color the consideration by the jury of all issues in this matter, including that of liability.
Plaintiff also assigns as error the refusal of the trial court to allow plaintiff to bring an action for the wrongful death of a full-term viable fetus. Here again it is my view that plaintiff’s point is well made. Our case of Webb v. Snow3 is not applicable for two reasons: First, the operative facts are completely distinguishable; and we would not do an injustice to stare de-cisis for the reason that the concept advanced by that case is no longer a part of the weight of authority in this country. Additionally, I see no moral, biological, or legal rationale for sustaining an outmoded, dry, rule laced with the fictions of a bygone era.
In the matter of Libbee v. Permanente Clinic4 is found a situation very similar to the one at hand. The court rejected the view that an unborn child has no judicial existence apart from its mother and cites ■those cases representing the weight of authority in this country sustaining the court’s opinion.
Plaintiff adduced substantial evidence upon which recovery could have been sustained had the jury believed her. She should have been given the opportunity to be believed without the prejudicial effect of the evidence alluded to above.
TUCKETT, J., concurs in the views expressed in the dissenting opinion of MAUGHAN, J.

. 148 Cal.App.2d 447, 306 P.2d 1044 (1957).

. 38 A.L.R.3d 613, Sec. 2; 118 U. of Pa.Law Rev. 1 (1969).

. 102 Utah 435, 444, 132 P.2d 114 (1942).

. 268 Or. 258, 518 P.24 636 (1973).