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Ruiz v. City of Orlando11/21/2003
Appellant, Aurelia Ruiz ["Ruiz"], appeals the trial court's dismissal of her suit against the City of Orlando ["the City"] because she had attempted to perpetrate a fraud on the court. Because the record does not establish fraud on the court, we reverse.
Seventy-two-year-old Ruiz filed a complaint against the City alleging that it negligently repaired or maintained a section of Mercado Ave. She claimed that she was injured when the vehicle in which she was a passenger hit a pothole, or dip, in the road.
When the City deposed Ruiz, she claimed to have suffered re-injury of a previous prolapsed vagina and a back injury. Defense counsel asked:
Q. Before your accident of September 5, 2000, had you ever suffered an injury to your back?
A. No.
Q. Had you ever been told that you had a compression fracture or a broken vertebra in your back before this accident?
A. No. I had an accident - excuse me. I had an accident in 1963, but it didn't cause any injury to the back, it caused injury to the neck bone.
Q. Was it an auto accident?
A. Yeah.
Ruiz said she could not remember the name of the hospital on Long Island where she had been treated in 1963. When counsel asked Ruiz if she had ever had any back problems, as opposed to an "injury," she replied "I have arthritis." She testified that her family doctors treat her for the arthritis with painkillers.
The City filed a motion to dismiss with prejudice alleging that Ruiz had committed fraud regarding her medical history. The City alleged that in her July 31 deposition, Ruiz had denied that she had suffered a back injury prior to the September 5 accident. Although Ruiz had admitted to being in an automobile accident in 1963, she said that only her neck, and not her back, had been injured. The City argued that Ruiz' medical records proved that she had injured her "back" in the 1963 accident.
The City attached to its motion the excerpt from Ruiz' deposition. The City also submitted a copy of a Florida Hospital Emergency Physician Record, which appears to have been completed based on information received from Mrs. (or Mr.) Ruiz on the day of the pothole accident. The phrase "prior back injury" is circled under the "past history" section and "1963" is written next to it. The phrase "prior back pain" was also circled with arthritis written underneath it. The report also contains a notation under "similar symptoms" that Ruiz had a history of arthritis.
The City also submitted a computer generated copy of a lumbrosacral spine exam done the day of the accident. Dr. Galen C. Le, M.D., a radiologist, found that Ruiz' exam showed a "mild to moderate compression fracture of T12 upper endplate which is probably old. . . There is mild narrowing of the L2-3 discs. . . . There is diffuse osteopenia. There is mild scoliosis of the lumbar spine, convexed to the left. Mild spurring is noted along the lumbar spine laterally."
The City also submitted a patient history for Ruiz that was written in Spanish and dated June 11, 1993. A translator provided a written translation of several statements in which Ruiz stated that she had a previous automobile accident in which her neck and back "suffered much."
Dr. F. J. Schroeder, an orthopedic surgeon who saw Ruiz after the accident, noted in his report that Ruiz' x-rays reveal that she had a compression fracture at T-12, age undetermined. He also noted, however, that upon review of a lateral x-ray of the thoracolumbar spine which revealed the compression fracture at T-12, he suspected that it was acute.
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