Court Opinion

ID: 9743030
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:24:24.658466+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:38.663460
License: Public Domain

Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE SIMON, dissenting: I disagree with the majority’s statement that there is a difference between the situation presented by this appeal and that in Scholle v. Continental National American Group (1977), 44 Ill. App. 3d 716, 358 N.E.2d 893. Dr. Minster’s testimony for the plaintiff in Scholle did not provide any more substantial foundation than Dr. Goldt’s testimony in this case for concluding that the respective deaths were caused by an accident; accordingly, Dr. Goldt’s testimony should not have been stricken. In Scholle, Dr. Minster testified that he “could not give an opinion based upon a reasonable degree of medical certainty whether Mrs. Scholle’s aneurysm came from the trauma or whether it ruptured simultaneously.” Here, after testifying that the coronary could have been preceded by the trauma, Dr. Goldt conceded that there was no way for him to tell whether the accident caused decedent’s heart attack or whether the heart attack caused the accident. Thus, the only information of probative value added by Dr. Minster was that although the aneurysm could have started as a leak causing a momentary imbalance which resulted in the fall, he assumed otherwise because “the symptoms followed the fall and because it would be unusual for loss of balance to precede the symptoms of a headache and stiff neck.” Dr. Goldt’s testimony was not based on guess or speculation any more than was the expert testimony in Scholle, and I fail to see how Dr. Minster’s assumption added anything to his opinion substantial enough to distinguish the quality of the expert testimony in Scholle from Dr. Goldt’s testimony in this case. This is particularly so because Dr. Minster also testified that an “aneurysm could suddenly rupture without any warning and that upon rupture it would be possible for a person to pass out and momentarily lose balance as an early sign of the rupture.” This testimony was consistent with the defendant insurance company’s hypothesis that Mrs. Scholle’s physical problems preceded her fall. Because we do not, of course, have the record in Scholle before us in this case, all we know of the evidence in Scholle is what appears in the reviewing court’s opinion. Yet, the bottom line of that opinion in regard to our case is the court’s summary of the evidence: “In the present case, the experts testified to the full extent of their medical knowledge when they established that the fall could have caused the rupture as well as the opposite result. Having done so they had no more information to offer the jury. The effect and weight to be accorded to the fact that the symptoms of the burst aneurysm appeared immediately after decedent’s fall thus was completely within the province of the jury and the resolution of the issue did not require expert testimony.” 44 Ill. App. 3d 716, 722. The quality and extent of the evidence in Scholle is strikingly similar to that presented in this case. Two opposite inferences — that Mr. Simon had a heart attack before his car lurched forward or that the car lurched forward causing the heart attack — could have been drawn from that evidence. Accordingly, as in Scholle, the jury here should have been left to draw the decisive conclusion as to what happened first. Although the majority attempts to distinguish Scholle by pointing out that Mrs. Scholle had not been ill prior to her fall, while Mr. Simon had been treated for high blood pressure before his death, this argument does not take into account that here, both Mrs. Simon and Dr. Goldt testified that Mr. Simon’s blood pressure was under control before he died. Thus, in both cases, the plaintiff was not ill, and was in fact healthy immediately prior to the occurrence resulting in death. Proof of a state of health prior to an injury with a following change is competent evidence to establish that the impaired condition was due to the trauma. (Scholle, at 722.) For this reason, too, the decision in this case should have been left to the jury. To be consistent with the well-reasoned opinion in Scholle, I would reverse so that plaintiff can have a complete trial and a jury determination as to whether the forward movement of the car was accidental.