Roddy v. Fleischman Distilling Sales Corp.

• Citation: 360 Mass. 623,277 N.E.2d 284
• Parties: Thomas P. RODDY v. The FLEISCHMAN DISTILLING SALES CORPORATION.
• Decision Date: 15 December 1971
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

Page 284

277 N.E.2d 284

360 Mass. 623

Thomas P. RODDY v. The FLEISCHMAN DISTILLING SALES CORPORATION.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Norfolk.

Argued Nov. 3, 1971.

Decided Dec. 15, 1971.

Thomas R. Morse, Jr., Boston (Philander S. Ratzkoff, Boston, with him), for defendant.

Timothy J. McInerney, Boston, for plaintiff.

Before TAURO, C.J., and CUTTER, REARDON, BRAUCHER and HENNESSEY, JJ.

HENNESSEY, Justice.

This is an action of tort for personal injuries incurred on September 24, 1964, when a motor vehicle operated by an employee of the defendant collided with a motor vehicle operated by the plaintiff. The defendant admitted liability and the case was tried before a jury solely upon the issue of damages. The jury returned a verdict of $125,000. All of the defendant's exceptions argued before us concern various rulings on evidence by the judge.

The plaintiff incurred a penetrating wound of the right knee which required corrective surgery, head injuries which included laceration of the scalp, a cerebral concussion, and contusion of the right upper arm, and various lesser injuries to other parts of the body. Following the accident, the plaintiff was absent from his principal employment for seven and one-half weeks. He worked thereafter for about five months on a part time basis with a cast on his leg, before returning to his full time duties in his principal employment.

Six medical specialists called by the plaintiff testified that because of the accident of September 24, 1964, he presently suffers from permanent partial disability and permanent symptoms related to his right knee, brain, back, neck, and eyes, and a permanent post-traumatic anxiety neurosis.

1. The defendant argues several exceptions to the judge's rulings upon evidence during the testimony of Dr. Cammisa, an ophthalmologist, called to the stand by the plaintiff.

Dr. Cammisa testified that he had examined the plaintiff in 1968 and received from the plaintiff a history concerning the automobile accident of September 24, 1964. The plaintiff complained to the doctor of blurry vision, soreness of the eyes, and deep-seated headaches. The doctor's examination disclosed that the plaintiff had defective vision in both eyes, correctable by glasses and that his eye muscles were not in functional balance.

Dr. Cammisa was then asked a lengthy hypothetical question, which assumed that the plaintiff before the automobile accident of September 24, 1964, 'never had any blurry vision and soreness of his eyes with deep-seated headaches.' The plaintiff testified, later in the trial, that he had suffered a trauma to the head in 1951, that he thereafter suffered from paroxysmal temporal headaches and blurring of his vision, and in 1952 a surgical procedure was performed upon him consisting of the boring of two holes through his skull. Thus, when the total evidence had been presented, there was an important difference between the hypothesis presented to Dr. Cammisa and the evidence heard by the jury (in testimony which was binding upon the plaintiff) in that the major symptoms of the plaintiff had pree xisted the 1964 automobile accident.

The doctor was then asked for his opinion as to whether the plaintiff's complaints and eye condition were causally related to the accident of September 24, 1964. The judge allowed the question over the objection and exception of the defendant. Defence counsel stated as the grounds, among others, of his objection that some of the assumed facts were not before the court and jury and that the information possessed by the doctor was insufficient as a basis for an opinion. Before the answer was received, however, the judge gave some instructions to the jury. Although the judge did not say to counsel or to the jury that the answer was to be received de bene, his instructions to the jury were substantially those which accompany a de bene ruling, and defence counsel probably should have inferred that such was the nature of the ruling. ¹ The defence thereafter filed no motion to strike the doctor's answer, even after the total evidence in the case had been received, and after the plaintiff's own testimony had disclosed the erroneous premises which had been included in the hypothetical question. If the above summary fairly stated the entire basis of the defendant's present argument, we might be inclined to hold that the failure to file an appropriate motion to strike foreclosed the defendant now. Brek's Case, 335 Mass. 144, 148--149, 138 N.E.2d 748. Muldoon v. West End Chevrolet, Inc., 338 Mas. 91, 98, 153 N.E.2d 887. However, the defendant argues that the matter was compounded by subsequent evidentiary developments.

The question which sought Doctor Cammisa's opinion as to causal relationship between the accident of September 24, 1964, and the plaintiff's symptoms called for no more than an affirmative or negative answer. However, the doctor gave a lengthy and nonresponsive answer, which the judge allowed to stand over the objection and exception of the defendant. ² The doctor spoke of 'traumatic cause as fundamental' and 'scar tissue sometimes in the base of the brain.' Thus, in a nonresponsive answer the witness had volunteered evidence of scar tissue in the brain. Because of the manner in which the testimony was received, and defendant had no opportunity to challenge the doctor's qualifications in this area. Also, considering the language of his answer ('sometimes'), it was not entirely clear then whether Dr. Cammisa was doing any more than conjecturing as to the presence of scar tissue. Further questioning, over objections and exceptions of the defendant, brought forth the doctor's opinions that 'it would be very difficult' to remove 'any scarification,' and that scar tissue is a 'permanent situation.' Still later, the doctor testified that the prognosis concerning the man's eyesight 'is not a very good one' because 'nerve structure is more difficult to produce any kind of restoration or function than any other tissue.' The defendant's motion to strike this answer was denied and an exception was saved.

In summary, the jury were ultimately allowed to consider an answer by Dr. Cammisa to a hypothetical question which contained major premises which were not supported by the evidence in the case; in a nonresponsive opinion, which may have been beyond his qualifications and which may have been no more than conjecture on his part, the doctor testified as to scar tissue in the plaintiff's brain; later the doctor gave a pessimistic prognosis as to the plaintiff's eyesight. Since all of this evidence was in the case over the defendant's objections and exceptions, the defendant is entitled to a new trial.

The defendant has argued that the prejudicial effect of this testimony was compounded by the plaintiff's counsel including, in four successive leading questions addressed by him to another medical witness called by the plaintiff, the words 'convulsions' and 'anti-convulsant' and, upon one occasion, the...