 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Bryant v. Lagrange Memorial Hospital12/17/2003
operly she heard audible signals from the external monitor indicating that the baby's heart rate had decelerated to the 60s for approximately 17 minutes. Thereafter, during Hospital counsel's direct examination of Dr. MacGregor, counsel asked the doctor whether he believed there were any audible tones coming from the monitor machine between 4:40 a.m. and 4:53 a.m., the time the monitor was not tracing properly. Plaintiffs' counsel objected pursuant to Rule 213 and moved to strike the doctor's answer. Hospital counsel replied that he was not asking for the doctor's opinion but rather the doctor's understanding of the facts.
During a sidebar out of the hearing and presence of the jury, plaintiffs argued that Dr. MacGregor's answer was non-disclosed opinion testimony. After hearing arguments on the matter, the trial court sustained plaintiffs' objection and struck Dr. MacGregor's answer on the ground that it represented a new opinion. Hospital counsel then asked, "Will the court then not allow me to re-ask this witness what his understanding of the facts is as to whether there was an audible tone or not in that time period?" When the trial court asked if there was any objection, plaintiffs counsel asked, "What the evidence from the materials he reviewed up to the time of his deposition?" Hospital counsel responded, "Sure, I mean just -- ." Plaintiffs counsel then responded, "That's fine."
When the sidebar ended and the proceedings continued, Hospital counsel asked Dr. MacGregor, "Do you just have an understanding whether or not the fetal heart tones were audible in the labor room during these periods of time where we don't see any recordation on the strips?" Dr. MacGregor answered, "I don't understand that there were. There's no recording that the heart rates were audible and that they couldn't be recorded. And that would be pretty uncommon that you could hear the heart rate but it wouldn't record on the monitor." After plaintiffs' counsel moved to strike the answer, the trial court struck the last sentence without further objection from plaintiffs' counsel.
The testimony of which plaintiffs now complain occurred during Hospital counsel's redirect examination of Dr. MacGregor where counsel asked, "Mr. Pfaff asked you some questions as to whether it's true you have no information as to whether the nurses could hear an audible signal during this time period. From your understanding of how electronic fetal monitoring equipment works, do you believe that would be likely during those time periods where there's no physical tracing?" Again, plaintiffs' counsel objected pursuant to Rule 213. Hospital counsel responded that plaintiffs' counsel had opened the door to this inquiry on cross-examination.
On cross-examination, plaintiffs' counsel had asked Dr. MacGregor the following question, "Okay. Where is it in any of the testimony of the nurses where they say that between 4:40 and 4:53 they could not hear the audible on the monitor, could not see the visual or could not hear the alarms on the machine?" The trial court agreed that plaintiffs' counsel's cross-examination had opened the door to the doctor's testimony.
We find that the trial court's ruling on the matter was correct. Where a plaintiff opens the door to elicitation of certain testimony, the plaintiff cannot complain that he was prejudiced by any cross-examination defense counsel raised regarding that testimony. See Conner v. Ofreneo, 257 Ill. App. 3d 427, 434, 628 N.E.2d 1150 (1993).
IV. Conclusion
Accordingly, for the reasons set forth above, the judgment of the circuit court of Cook County is affirmed.
Affirmed.
HOFFMAN, P.J., and SOUTH, J., con
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Illinois Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|