Wallace v. Williams, 77-400

• Decision Date: 19 June 1978
• Docket Number: No. 77-400,77-400
• Citation: 567 S.W.2d 111,263 Ark. 702
• Parties: Clyde T. WALLACE, Appellant, v. Woodrow WILLIAMS et ux., Appellees.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 111

567 S.W.2d 111

263 Ark. 702

Clyde T. WALLACE, Appellant, v. Woodrow WILLIAMS et ux., Appellees.

No. 77-400.

Supreme Court of Arkansas, In Banc.

June 19, 1978.

Laser, Sharp, Haley, Young & Huckabay, Little Rock, for appellant.

Joe Cambiano, Morrilton, for appellees.

HOLT, Justice.

A jury awarded $11,325.41 to appellees for property damage and personal injuries incurred in an automobile collision with appellant. For reversal appellant first asserts the trial court erred in failing to strike the opinion testimony of a physician as to the permanency of appellee Audley Williams' injuries.

A properly qualified expert's opinion constitutes substantial evidence unless it be shown that the expert's opinion is without reasonable basis. Ark. State Highway Comm'n v. Geeslin, 247 Ark. 537, 446 S.W.2d 245 (1969). Here the physician is a general practitioner with twenty-six years' experience. His expertise is not questioned. Appellant concedes that the opinion testimony given on direct examination by this treating physician that Mrs. Williams would require future medical treatment for her injuries and had sustained a five percent permanent partial disability as a result of the accident would be sufficient to justify the jury's award of damages. However, appellant argues that on cross-examination, it was demonstrated that the physician's opinion was conjectural and without reasonable basis inasmuch as he did not sufficiently delineate the nature of the injuries received by Mrs. Williams in this accident from her injuries in a previous accident and other infirmities. Mrs. Williams had received an injury to the same area of her low back in an automobile accident four and a half years before the present injury. From the date of the earlier accident, she has been under this physician's care and treatment.

On direct examination, this physician testified that, immediately following Mrs. Williams' last injury, January, 1977, he examined her and found she "had tenderness of the muscles in the lumbrosacral spine and some tenderness in the region of the cervical spine." He x-rayed her and found "(s)he had arthritis of the spine and a degenerative disc disease of the lumbro-sacral spine that's the low back. And of the cervical spine, she had degenerative disc disease and osteoarthritis there also." Thereafter, he continuously saw her for treatment, prescribing medications for the pain and giving her injections of ACTH. He had treated Mrs. Williams four a half years for accidental injuries to her lower back but did not recall with specificity what her condition and problems were because he had lost his chart on her. However, Mrs. Williams' condition "had improved" since the earlier accident. Following the present accident, "her condition worsened." He anticipated Mrs. Williams would continue to require medical treatment "probably" for the rest of her life. Regardless of what her condition was before, as a result of the last accident, it was definitely his opinion that she "probably has about five percent more (permanent disability) than she did have." He based his opinion "(u)pon tenderness and muscle spasm and x-rays of injury and arthritis."

On cross-examination, he testified that since he had lost his records on Mrs. Williams, his comparison of her present injuries with her previous condition was based upon "what I remember." He was not sure when appellee hurt her lower back four and a half years before whether she then aggravated a pre-existing arthritis condition, but was "sure that is probably right." He could not...