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Morlock v. St. Paul Guardian Insurance Company8/28/2001
Respondents Dean and Judy Morlock brought an action against appellant St. Paul Guardian Insurance Company to recover underinsured motorist benefits after Dean Morlock was injured in a car accident. A jury awarded Dean Morlock $508,060.50 for past and future damages and Judy Morlock $125,000 for loss of consortium. The district court denied appellant insurer's motion for a new trial, JNOV, and remittitur. The insurer contends on appeal that the district court erred in giving a prejudicial jury instruction and in declining to grant remittitur based on insufficient evidence presented at trial. We reverse and remand for a new trial.
FACTS
On September 15, 1996, an underinsured motorist rear-ended a car driven by respondent Dean Morlock (Morlock) near a highway construction site. Appellant St. Paul Guardian Insurance Company (Guardian) was the underinsured motorist insurance carrier for Morlock's car. Morlock sustained injuries in the accident and, having reached a settlement with the motorist who had rear-ended him, brought an action against appellant to recover underinsured motorist benefits. In the same action, respondent Judy Morlock, Morlock's wife, sought to recover benefits for loss of consortium.
At trial, Morlock testified that he experienced chronic head, neck, and back pain following the accident. Witnesses familiar with Morlock's life and work activities testified that he had become less active following the accident.
Morlock's attorney introduced videotaped deposition testimony by Morlock's treating physicians, one of whom testified that Morlock experienced neck and back pain after the accident and had surgery to repair disks in his back. The same physician noted that Morlock had sustained a back injury in 1957, which resulted in his hospitalization and treatment for back pain intermittently throughout the 1970s to the early 1990s. The physician explained, however, that Morlock's medical records showed no flare-ups or hospitalizations for back pain during the five years prior to the accident, suggesting that Morlock's present injuries were caused by the 1996 accident. Nevertheless, the physician acknowledged that the residual effects of the 1957 accident had not been fully resolved and still existed to some degree. He also conceded that some of Morlock's current complaints were due to pre-existing problems such as degenerative arthritis of the spine and joints.
Morlock's medical records indicate that he has received treatment for various ailments throughout his lifetime, many of which produced symptoms similar to those he experienced after the 1996 accident. As late as 1991, Morlock received treatment for back pain that the treating physician diagnosed as probable degenerative lumbar arthritis. In videotaped deposition testimony, Guardian's medical expert testified that, based on his medical records, Morlock's current medical complaints resulted not only from the car accident, but also from pre-existing medical problems relating to the skeletal system, back, and neck. Morlock's counsel acknowledged at trial that "there is evidence in this case which could support conclusion that a pre-existing condition is part of the problems that Dean Morlock is experiencing now."
Over Guardian's objection, the district court instructed the jury in relevant part as follows:
A person who has a defect or disability at the time of an accident is entitled to damages for any aggravation of that pre-existing condition.
Damages are limited, however, to results which are over and above those which normally followed from the pre-existing condition, had there been no accident.
If you cannot separate d
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