Court Opinion

ID: 9718778
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:33:37.014569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:00:38.371381
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE RYAN, dissenting: I have no problem with the general incorporation of Rules 703 and 705 of the Federal Rules of Evidence into the law of evidence of this State. However, the majority opinion expands Rules 703 and 705 to the point that the accepted principles governing the admissibility of evidence are abandoned. Under this opinion, completely untrustworthy evidence is permitted to go to the jury to be given whatever weight the jury may wish to give it. I therefore dissent. Before opinion evidence is admissible, the court must make a determination that the facts, statements, and opinions relied upon by the expert are trustworthy. “In determining whether reliance by the expert is reasonable, the court should be satisfied both that such items are of the type customarily relied upon by experts in the field, and that such items are sufficiently trustworthy to make such reliance reasonable.” (Emphasis added.) (E. Cleary & M. Graham, Illinois Evidence sec. 703.1, at 470 (4th ed. 1984).) Federal Rule 703 does not set any standards against which to measure the trustworthiness of statements or facts relied upon by the expert. However, “the Advisory Committee’s Note [to Federal Rule 703] indicates that reliance is reasonable only if the facts, data, or opinions possess trustworthiness in excess of that possessed by the ordinary hearsay statement. Trustworthiness similar to that possessed by a hearsay statement admissible pursuant to any hearsay exception is apparently contemplated.” (E. Cleary & M. Graham, Illinois Evidence sec. 703.1, at 471 (4th ed. 1984).) Thus under Federal Rule 703, the court must make the preliminary determination of whether the facts, data, or statements relied upon by the expert are of the type reasonably relied upon. (E. Cleary & M. Graham, Illinois Evidence sec. 703.1, at 470, and sec. 104.1, at 29-30 (4th ed. 1984).) It is, therefore, not appropriate to throw a lot of chaff, no matter how untrustworthy, to the jury for it to sort through in search of something it may perceive to be a grain of wheat. The majority relies on the recent decision of this court in J. L. Simmons Co. ex rel. Hartford Insurance Group v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. (1985), 108 Ill. 2d 106. However, in that case the trial court had made a preliminary determination to admit the opinion of the expert based on certain hearsay information, whereas in our case the trial court had made the preliminary finding that the opinion of the expert should not be admitted into evidence. In Simmons, the employer, Simmons, had settled a workers’ compensation claim of an employee, Boone, and had filed suit against Firestone both for the amount paid to Boone under the workers’ compensation settlement and for personal injuries to Boone. The expert who testified in that case was a vocational counselor who stated that, in his opinion, Boone was unemployable. This opinion was based, at least in part, on interviews of the expert with the injured employee. It is not clear from the opinion of this court the purpose for which the interviews were conducted. However, in the appellate court opinion in Simmons (J. L. Simmons Co. v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. (1984), 126 Ill. App. 3d 859, 866), it appears that the expert examined Boone for the purpose of evaluating his compensation claim against Simmons to determine whether Boone was a likely candidate for retraining for other work, and not for the purpose of testifying. If this was the case, then the facts in Simmons are so completely different from those present in our case that Simmons would be no authority for the holding of the majority here. In any event, trustworthiness as to the facts and statements relied upon by the expert in Simmons was not found to be wanting, and the trial judge permitted the expert to testify. In our case, the trial court came to the opposite conclusion. Many years ago this court noted that when a party to a lawsuit is examined by an expert solely for the purpose of qualifying the expert as a witness at the trial, the party being examined has an incentive to fabricate and exaggerate his symptoms. The expert should not, therefore, be permitted to state his opinion based on such subjective, self-serving responses. (See Greinke v. Chicago City Ry. Co. (1908), 234 Ill. 564, 572-73.) Following this rationale, I would hold that the statements of the plaintiff in this case, made to an expert who was examining him solely for the purpose of testifying in his behalf, were not sufficiently trustworthy to permit the expert to testify as to his opinion, which was based, at least in part, upon the self-serving statements of the plaintiff. An excellent, well-reasoned article on this subject is found in a recent issue of the Chicago Bar Record. (See Stalmack & Switzer, Wilson v. Clark and its Progeny: The Application of Federal Rules 703 and 705 in Illinois, 67 Chi. B. Rec. 4.) The article stresses the requirement that before an expert’s reliance on outside data or statements may be found reasonable, the information must be found to be trustworthy. The article also notes that exceptions to the hearsay rule are themselves predicated on notions of trustworthiness and necessity. In fact, it has been noted by one authority that for most practical purposes, the effect of Federal Rule 703 is similar to the creation of additional exceptions to the hearsay rule. (E. Cleary & M. Graham, Illinois Evidence sec. 703.1, at 472 (4th ed. 1984).) The article in the Chicago Bar Record then makes the following observation about the very situation that is presented in our case: “For example, consider the situation of the examining physician. Statements by a party to a physician retained to testify at trial are not made for purposes of treatment and, hence, carry little to outweigh the strong motive to falsify under such circumstances. In most cases, therefore, such statements would probably contain few indicia of trustworthiness sufficient to qualify them, for use under Rule 703, even though the expert describes such statements as being of a type customarily relied on by members of his profession.” (Emphasis added.) Stalmack & Switzer, Wilson v. Clark and its Progeny: The Application of Federal Rules 703 and 705 in Illinois, 67 Chi. B. Rec. 4, 15-16. The majority opinion cites no authority for its position other than Simmons, which, as noted above, may not be applicable. The general language of Federal Rule 703, when considered in light of the Advisory Committee’s Notes, does not support the conclusion the majority draws from the general language of the rule. I find that the opinion of the expert in our case was based in part on untrustworthy, self-serving statements which the plaintiff made in preparation for trial. I believe that the trial court properly excluded the opinion of this expert. I therefore dissent. JUSTICE MILLER joins in this dissent.