Moratsky v. Wirth

Citation74 Minn. 146,76 N.W. 1032
PartiesMORATSKY v WIRTH.
Decision Date03 November 1898
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota (US)

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

(Syllabus by the Court.)

1. It is only in cases where the evidence, and the facts to be deduced therefrom, are undisputed, and the case concerns a matter of science or specialized art, or other matter of which a layman can have no knowledge, that a jury must accept the opinion of experts as conclusive. Held, accordingly, that it was not error in this case for the trial court to instruct the jury, in effect, that the weight to be attached to the expert testimony was a question for them, and that their conclusion as to any question of fact was to be based upon a consideration of the whole testimony, expert and nonexpert, and that they were not to surrender their conclusion so formed because the opinion of the experts did not coincide with such conclusion; that to do otherwise, and accept the opinions of the experts as to what had been proven by the evidence, would make them, and not the jury, the triors of the cause.

2. The trial court is not bound to repeat its instructions by giving special requests which are fully covered by the general charge. Rule followed, and held that it was not error for the court to refuse certain special requests.

3. Certain rulings of the trial court as to the admission of evidence considered, and held to have been correct.

4. The verdict is sustained by the evidence.

Appeal from district court, Ramsey county; George L. Bunn, Judge.

Action by Amelia Moratsky against Carl

Wirth for malpractice. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Humphrey Barton, for appellant.

Norman Fetter, James E. Trask, and N. B. Ferguson, for respondent.

START, C. J.

This is an action against the defendant, a physician, for malpractice in treating the plaintiff, and this is the second appeal herein. 67 Minn. 46, 69 N. W. 480. A subsequent trial in the district court resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff in the sum of $1,800, and the defendant appealed from the judgment entered thereon. It was substantially admitted on the trial that the plaintiff, a married woman, during the night of October 29, 1891, was delivered of a five months old fœtus, and that the defendant was her attending physician from October 24th to November 18th; that after the delivery, and on the following morning, the plaintiff removed the afterbirth. It is claimed on the part of the plaintiff that there was evidence on the trial tending to show, and that it was sufficient to justify the jury in finding, that the defendant negligently failed to remove a piece of the afterbirth, which putrified, whereby blood poisoning was produced, which caused the blood to clot, causing a plug either in the vein or artery of her left leg, whereby the blood was shut off, and the leg became gangrened, and was cut off to save her life. The defendant contended on the trial that, if he failed to remove all of the afterbirth, he was not negligent, but, if he was, such negligence was not the cause of the injury complained of.

1. The first error here urged by the defendant is that the court erred in instructing the jury that: “The weight to be attached to the expert testimony is also a question for you to determine. If you reach a given conclusion, from the consideration of the whole evidence, including as well the opinions of the experts, as substantive facts deposed to by witnesses, whether experts or nonexperts, you are not to surrender your conclusion, which is your opinion on the whole evidence, because the opinions of the experts do not coincide with yours, but lead to a different result.” “To express the same thought in different language, you are not to substitute for your own views of what is established by the whole evidence-substantive and opinion, expert and nonexpert-the opinion of expert witnesses; for to thus surrender your own conclusions, and substitute instead the conclusions of witnesses as to what has been proved by the evidence, would be to make such witnesses, and not the jury at all, the triors of the cause.” The objections to these instructions by the defendant are that they, in effect, advise the jury that, if their opinion on any question upon which expert testimony was introduced did not agree with the opinion of the experts, they might disregard it, and follow their own opinion, and, further, that they were liable to mislead the jury. If counsel was of the opinion that the instructions were subject to the last objection, his remedy was to ask the court to make them more specific. The instructions, however, are not fairly susceptible of the construction counsel seeks to give them. They were to the effect that the weight to be attached to expert testimony was a question for the jury, and that their conclusion as to any question of fact was to be based upon a consideration of the whole testimony, expert and nonexpert, and that they were not to surrender their conclusion so formed because the opinion of the experts did not coincide with such conclusion; that to do otherwise, and accept the opinion of the experts as to what had been proven by the evidence, would make them, and not the jury, the triors of the cause. The ordinary function of experts is to assist, by their superior knowledge, the jury in reaching a correct conclusion from the facts in testimony before them. Their opinions are not, as a rule, conclusive upon the jury, but mere items of evidence for the consideration of the jury. But in a case where the evidence, and the facts to be deduced therefrom, are undisputed, and the case concerns a matter of science or specialized art or other matter, of which a layman can have no knowledge, the jury must base their conclusion upon the testimony of the experts. In such a case, it may be conceded that it would be error to give the instructions complained of. Such, however, is not this case, wherein both the expert and substantive evidence was conflicting. One of the vital and sharply-contested questions in this case was whether the blood poisoning which caused the plugging of the artery in plaintiff's leg was due to the retention and decay of the afterbirth, or whether it existed before the plaintiff was delivered of the fœtus. If before, then the alleged negligence of the defendant, in not discovering and removing the afterbirth, was not the proximate cause of the loss of the plaintiff's leg. Upon this point there was expert evidence on both sides, which was conflicting, but it was practically conceded that the time when the plaintiff's leg first began to give her trouble and pain was an important factor in determining the question. The plaintiff and her witnesses fixed the date of the first pain and difficulty with her leg at about 10 days after the birth. On the other hand, the defendant and his witnesses on the question testified that there was trouble with her leg at and before the time of his first visit to her, and that she then told him that it had pained her for weeks. Now, it is clear that, if the jury found the fact to be that the plaintiff did not have any trouble with or pain in her leg until after the birth, they would be justified in refusing to accept as conclusive any opinion as to the cause of the plaintiff's injury based in part upon the assumed fact that the trouble and pain in the leg existed prior to the birth. It was not error to give the instructions, in view of the evidence which the jury were to pass upon.

2. It was not error for...

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