Cameron v. Evans

• Decision Date: 11 February 1954
• Docket Number: Nos. 36007--8--9--10,s. 36007--8--9--10
• Parties: CAMERON et al. v. EVANS et al.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 793

62 N.W.2d 793

241 Minn. 200

CAMERON et al. v. EVANS et al.

Nos. 36007--8--9--10.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Feb. 11, 1954.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. In arriving at the meaning of the testimony of a witness and what it proves, the testimony must be examined and considered as a whole as brought out on both direct and cross-examination. This rule applies with equal force to the testimony of expert witnesses. Before a person may recover for permanent injuries it must appear to a reasonable certainty that there will be permanent injuries. Evidence examined and Held sufficient under these rules to require the submission of the issue of permanent injuries to the jury.

2. The charge of the trial court must be viewed in its entirety and from a practical and common-sense point of view. All that is required is that the charge, as a whole, convey to the jury a clear and correct understanding of the law. It is unnecessary that every possible opportunity for misapprehension be guarded against. If the charge fairly lays down the law of the case, it is sufficient. Held that the court did not err in the method and manner in which it submitted the issue of permanent injuries to the jury.

3. Whether a verdict should be set aside as excessive rests largely in the discretion of the trial court. Its action will not be reversed on appeal unless it clearly appears that there was an abuse of discretion. While the verdicts here are liberal and we would have been better satisfied had the trial court reduced them, we cannot say that the failure to do so constituted an abuse of discretion.

Affirmed.

Gordon Rosenmeier and John E. Simonett, Little Falls, Vernon J. Schweiger, Minneapolis, for appellants.

Austin L. Grimes, Little Falls, for respondents.

DELL, Chief Justice.

These are appeals from an order denying the defendants' motions for new trials in two actions which were tried together below and on appeal were consolidated for disposition. The question of liability is not disputed. The relief sought is a new trial on the issue of damages only in each case.

The questions to be determined in each case in order to reach a decision are: (1) Did the court err in submitting the issue of permanent injuries to the jury? (2) If the issue of permanent injuries was for the jury, did the court err in the method and manner in which the issue was submitted? (3) Are the damages excessive?

In determining whether the evidence was sufficient to submit the issue of permanent injuries to the jury we consider and state it in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs. On December 16, 1950, plaintiff Mary V. Cameron, wife of plaintiff Darrell P. Cameron, while riding as a passenger in a taxicab in Little Falls, was thrown from it in an accident and dragged for a distance. She was unconscious for a short time. She received injuries principally to her head, back, hip, and left leg. Her most serious injury was a compression fracture of the seventh thoracic vertebra. She was taken to the hospital where she was confined in bed until December 23 at which time a body cast was applied. On December 24 she was taken to her home where she remained in bed most of the time until February 5, 1951, at which time she returned to the hospital and the cast was removed. She was then fitted with a Taylor-Goldthwaite brace which she wore until August 28 at which time the brace, because of her pregnancy, was changed to a prenatal or maternity support. After the birth of the baby in December 1951, she resumed wearing the brace for part of the day principally in the morning when bathing and care for her child. She continued to wear it up to and at the time of the trial in January 1952.

Prior to the accident Mrs. Cameron was in good health, did all of her own housework, was active and athletic, enjoying dancing, skating, and bowling. She had suffered no previous injuries. Since the accident she has had severe headaches, pain in her hip and left leg below the knee, and a great deal of pain in her back. She is required to take drugs for relief. She is unable to perform any of her household duties other than mending and caring, in part, for her baby. Since the accident the Camerons have employed a maid constantly in their home to do the work formerly done by Mrs. Cameron.

The seventh vertebra was compressed at the outset about 10 percent, the compression being inward and also on the left side. There was a widening and splintering of the bone in that area. The space between the sixth and seventh vertebrae was narrowed, and the disc or cartilage between those two vertebrae was damaged. The compression of the vertebra increased following the accident so that at the time of the trial it was permanently reduced, according to plaintiffs' medical experts, at least 20 to 30 percent from its normal size; and the intervertebral space between the sixth and seventh vertebrae ws almost closed because of damage, not only to the bone, but to the cartilage between the vertebrae. Two doctors, who attended Mrs. Cameron, one an orthopedic specialist and the other a general practitioner, were called as witnesses for the plaintiffs. They testified that she had sustained a 20 percent permanent partial disability of the spine. In the light of this evidence, it would seem that the issue of permanent injuries was for the jury.

However, defendants contend that, notwithstanding the fact that the seventh vertebra will remain permanently compressed to the extent of 20 to 30 percent of its normal size and even though the intervertebral space between the two vertebrae has been almost eliminated and the cartilage or disc largely destroyed, there is no resulting disability which can be characterized as permanent because there has been a normal healing process without nerve impingement and without limitation of motion of the spine. In support of their claim defendant insist that plaintiffs' medical experts arrived at their opinions of permanent partial disability because of pain suffered by Mrs. Cameron and arthritic conditions or 'lipping' at the ninth and tenth thoracic vertebrae coupled with damage to the seventh vertebra and surrounding cartilage. They contend that there were no objective findings by the medical experts supporting Mrs. Cameron's subjective complaints of pain and that a finding of permanent injury cannot rest upon subjective complaints alone. They also claim that the arthritic condition between the ninth and tenth thoracic vertebrae existed prior to the accident and that it was, therefore, improper for plaintiffs' medical experts to give an opinion of permanent disability based, in part, upon that preexisting arthritic condition.

1. This court has frequently stated that before a person may recover for permanent injuries it must appear to a reasonable certainty that there will be permanent injury. ¹ Large verdicts must be closely scrutinized where the damages are based upon subjective symptoms only. ² Courts must exercise much circumspection in sustaining large verdicts where there are no objective findings and the only evidence of the extent of the injury is the word of the person injured. ³ Thus, in Lowe v. Armour Packing Co., supra, it was held that, where objective symptoms indicate full recovery, a large verdict cannot be sustained because subjective symptoms described by the plaintiff indicate a continuance of the ailment resulting from the injury unless the evidence furnishes a basis for determining, with reasonable certainty, the future consequences to be apprehended.

Defendants, in support of their contention, point to some admissions, contradictions, and inconsistencies drawn from plaintiffs' medical experts in cross-examination. It is not uncommon for admissions, contradictions, and inconsistencies to appear in the testimony of witnesses during cross-examination even though the witnesses are entirely honest. However, in arriving at the meaning of the testimony of a witness and what it proves, the testimony must be examined and considered as a whole as brought out on both direct and cross-examination. Its meaning must be drawn from the entire testimony of the witness and not from isolated portions of it. This rule applies with equal force to the testimony of expert witnesses. It is for the jury, not the court, to determine the weight to be given to the testimony of a witness and to decide what the testimony of the witness proves. ⁴

While it is true that some of the answers given by plaintiffs' experts standing alone might indicate that Mrs. Cameron's complaints of pain were entirely subjective, nevertheless, viewing their testimony as a whole it appears, from the type of fracture which she suffered, the almost complete destruction of the cartilage between the vertebrae, the scoliosis or lateral bending of the spine, the bruising of her head, back, left thigh and leg, the injury to the tendons and soft tissues, the arthritis which developed at the fracture site and its increase at the lower level, and the evidence of pain elicited by the experts upon pressure of the affected parts during their examination, that there were sufficient objective findings present to support Mrs. Cameron's complaints and to justify their opinion that she was suffering and would continue to suffer pain on account of the injuries which she received in the accident. ⁵ Moreover the opinions of plaintiffs' experts were corroborated to some extent by the opinions of two medical experts called by defendants who expressed the belief that she would suffer pain for a period of from six months to one year from the time of the trial and that at the time of the trial she was suffering from a 15 to 20 percent disability of the spine. Furthermore it should not be overlooked that both of plaintiffs' medical experts, after taking into consideration all injuries sustained by Mrs. Cameron in the accident, testified that she suffered a 20 percent permanent partial disability of the spine.

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