Breuer v. State

• Docket Number: DA 22-0062
• Decision Date: 19 December 2023
• Citation: 414 Mont. 256,2023 MT 242
• Parties: JOHN BREUER, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. STATE OF MONTANA, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: Montana Supreme Court

414 Mont. 256

2023 MT 242

JOHN BREUER, Plaintiff and Appellee,

v.STATE OF MONTANA, Defendant and Appellant.

No. DA 22-0062.

Submitted on Briefs November 22, 2022.

Decided December 19, 2023.

2023 MT 242.

414 Mont. 256.

___ P.3d ___

1.Civil Procedure - Appeals - Standards of Review - Abuse of Discretion - Evidence - Rule Application & Interpretation - Admissibility - Procedural Matters - Rulings on Evidence

Trial courts have broad discretion to determine the admissibility of evidence in accordance with the Montana Rules of Evidence and related statutory and jurisprudential rules.Except for related interpretations or applications of law reviewed de novo for correctness, an appellate court reviews evidentiary rulings only for an abuse of discretion.An abuse of discretion occurs when a court exercises granted discretion based on a clearly erroneous finding of fact, an erroneous conclusion or application of law, or otherwise acts arbitrarily, without conscientious judgment or in excess of the bounds of reason, resulting in substantial injustice.

2.Evidence - Burdens of Proof - Allocation - Torts - Proof - Preponderance of Evidence

A tort claimant has the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the alleged negligent conduct in fact caused the alleged injury and resulting physical and/or mental harm at issue.Except under certain circumstances, the tortious conduct at issue caused an alleged injury and/or resulting harm if it was the cause-in-fact of that injury and/or harm.

3.Evidence - Burdens of Proof - Preponderance of Evidence

The preponderance of the evidence standard merely requires proof sufficient to support a conclusion that the asserted existence, non-existence, occurrence, or nonoccurrence of the subject fact or factual occurrence was, is, or will be more probable than not, i.e., more likely than not.

4.Torts - Proof - Evidence - Expert Testimony

Except in rare cases where the cause of an alleged injury, resulting physical harm or disability, and related pecuniary damages is plainly obvious without need for specialized knowledge or expertise, the negligence claimant’s proof of the occurrence, nature, cause, or prognosis of an alleged bodily or mental injury, disease process, or other medical condition or disability generally requires qualified medical expert opinion.

5.Evidence - Burdens of Proof - Allocation - Torts - Proof - Elements - Causation - Causation in Fact

A defendant may contest a negligence claimant’s proof of causation of injury and resulting harm by proving that the defendant’s conduct caused only a portion of the alleged injury or resulting harm at issue.Under this divisible injury/apportionment of causation theory, the defendant is seeking a pro rata/proportional jury apportionment of the cause of the claimed injury or harm at issue between the claimed injury or harm at issue and a prior or subsequent injury or condition.In such case, the defendant has the burden of proving that the causation of injury or resulting harm at issue is distinctly divisible or apportionable between the subject injury or harm and the asserted prior or subsequent injury or condition.In that regard, except where determination of the causes of the subject injuries, conditions, or claimed disabilities at issue do not require specialized medical knowledge or expertise, proof of a distinctly divisible or apportionable injury, condition, or disability requires a qualified expert opinion rendered on a non-speculative basis (i.e., a more probable than not basis) that the cause of the injury, condition, or disability at issue is distinctly divisible between a portion caused-in-fact by the defendant’s tortious conduct and a portion caused-in-fact by a prior or subsequent injury, condition, or disability.

6.Torts - Elements - Causation - Concurrent Causation

Absent proof of a distinctly divisible or apportionable injury or resulting harm, the defendant is liable for the entirety of the injury and resulting harm caused-in-fact by his or her tortious conduct, regardless of whether a preexisting condition may have helped bring it about, or increased the negligence claimant’s susceptibility to such injury or harm, to some degree not distinctly apportionable on a more probable than not basis.

7.Torts - Elements - Causation - Concurrent Causation

An indivisible injury occurs when more than one incident contributes to a single injury and resulting damage and there is no logical or rational basis for distinctly dividing that injury between the contributing causes.An injury or resulting damage may be indivisible either because the harm caused cannot theoretically be divided, or because the injury and resulting damage is not distinctly divisible as a practical matter.

8.Torts - Elements - Causation - Causation in Fact - Concurrent Causation

Without seeking apportionment of causation of injury or harm, and subject to pertinent generally applicable rules of evidence, a defendant who denies any liability for the asserted injury or harm at issue in a particular case may attempt to negate or rebut a plaintiff’s proffered causation evidence by presenting evidence that some other cause, such as a prior injury or preexisting physical or mental condition, was the cause-in-fact of the injury or harm at issue.The particular injury or harm at issue in a particular case will vary due to the various facets of the causation question that may be in dispute in a particular case, such as, for example, what caused the injury at issue or whether the injury caused by the defendant’s tortious conduct or, alternatively, a prior or subsequent injury or condition, was the cause of the claimed physical harm or disability at issue.Subject to generally applicable rules of evidence, one permissible means of presenting alternate causation evidence is cross-examination of the claimant and/or his or her proffered medical causation experts regarding a relevant prior or subsequent injury and/or physical or mental condition or disability.

9.Evidence - Examination - Cross-Examinations - Scope

Mont. R. Evid. 705 affords a party an essential right to cross-examine the plaintiff’s expert witness regarding the basis of that expert’s opinion.A defendant may thus submit evidence of other injuries to negate allegations that he or she is the cause or sole cause of the current injury, subject to the trial court’s application of traditional evidentiary considerations.

10.Evidence - Impeachment - One’s Own Witnesses - Limitations - Relevance - Relevant Evidence - Application - Surprise

All relevant evidence is admissible except as otherwise provided by the Rules of Evidence and related statutory and jurisprudential rules.Mont. R. Evid. 402.Relevant evidence means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact of consequence to the determination of the action more or less probable.Mont. R. Evid. 401.Relevant evidence may include, inter alia, evidence bearing on the credibility of a witness.Mont. R. Evid. 401.Credibility is the quality that makes witness testimony or other evidence worthy of belief.Impeachment evidence is evidence tending to cast doubt on the credibility of a witness or witness testimony.A party may thus generally challenge or attack the credibility of any witness.Mont. R. Evid. 607(a).The primary method of challenging or impeaching the credibility of witness testimony is often cross-examination regarding a relevant matter tending to cast doubt on the truth, accuracy, or reliability of the witness’s testimony.Mont. R. Evid. 401 and 611(b);Mont. Code Ann. § 26-1-302(7) and (9).Cross-examination is thus a substantial right which should not be unduly restricted.

11.Evidence - Impeachment - One’s Own Witnesses - Limitations - Application - Surprise - Credibility of Witnesses - Prior Inconsistent Statements

As applied to the non-expert causation and damages testimony of the personal injury claimants in case law, and subject to other applicable rules of evidence, cross-examination regarding a witness’s prior inconsistent statements or other contradictory facts are among the various means of impeaching the credibility of a witness contemplated and authorized under Mont. R. Evid. 607(a).

12.Evidence - Credibility of Witnesses - Impeachment - Contradiction - One’s Own Witnesses - Limitations - Prior Inconsistent Statements - Hearsay - Credibility of Declarants

Aside from the manifest relevance of a witness’s prior inconsistent statements for impeachment purposes, impeachment by contradiction is attacking the credibility of a witness by cross-examination or extrinsic evidence offered to prove that a fact which the witness asserted or relied upon in his or her testimony is not true.Such evidence has two related but distinct purposes, first, as a basis for an inference that the witness either was dishonest or mistaken with respect to the specific fact contradicted, and second, as a basis for an inference that the witness is thus a generally unreliable source of information and therefore similarly mistaken, dishonest, or unreliable as to the balance of his or her testimony.While impeachment by contradiction may relate either to a matter that is directly at issue or only ancillary or collateral thereto, admission is in either event subject to balancing under the relevance and limiting factors of Mont. R. Evid. 401-03.When relevant for impeachment purposes under Mont. R. Evid. 401-03 and 607(a), evidence of impeachment by contradiction is admissible via cross-examination or extrinsic evidence.

13.Evidence - Credibility of Witnesses - Impeachment - Contradiction In contrast to evidence of impeachment by contradiction, evidence of general contradiction is evidence offered for the non-impeachment purpose of either directly contradicting previously admitted testimony or evidence, or indirectly challenging or undermining its truth or accuracy.

14.Evidence - Examination - Cross-Examinations - Scope

Regarding...