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Morgan v. Dunn3/9/2000
On summary judgment, the superior court ruled Patricia Dunn was liable to Barbara Morgan for injuries sustained in an automobile accident. The parties proceeded to trial on the issue of damages. Ms. Morgan appeals the $4,000 jury award. She contends the court erred first in allowing evidence of her prior injury and, second, in allowing the use of her former doctor's letter on cross-examination. She also finds error with the court's refusal to give the jury a lighting up instruction. We affirm.
FACTS
Barbara Morgan's automobile was struck from behind by an automobile driven by Patricia Dunn. Prior to trial, summary judgment was entered imposing liability against Ms. Dunn. At trial, the sole issue litigated was the nature and extent of Ms. Morgan's damages.
All doctors agreed that as a result of the collision, Ms. Morgan suffered cervical strain. However, six years before this accident, she had also suffered neck injuries as a result of an automobile accident. At the trial, she stated that she had made a full and complete recovery from the 1987 accident. Her doctor testified that x-rays revealed Ms. Morgan had osteoarthritis in her neck.
Prior to trial, Ms. Morgan moved that the court exclude all evidence regarding the 1987 collision. The court ruled that this evidence would be allowed 'for purposes of reducing the defendants' damages by questioning the extent of the plaintiff's injuries in the {sic} each of the two collisions.' Ms. Morgan entered a standing objection to the admissibility of information about the previous collision based on relevancy and its prejudicial effect.
Ms. Morgan also asked the court to exclude a letter from the doctor who treated her for injuries sustained in the prior accident. In that letter, Dr. Milan Jeckle stated Ms. Morgan would need continuing treatment for her neck injuries. The court ruled that Dr. Jeckle's letter could be used to impeach Ms. Morgan if she denied she needed such treatment and if the evidence showed she failed to obtain such treatment. Again, Ms. Morgan entered a standing objection, based on the lack of relevancy and the prejudicial effect of the evidence. Ms. Morgan argued that the real purpose of introducing the letter was to allow the jury to infer from Dr. Jeckle's letter that Ms. Morgan had been involved in a prior personal injury claim or lawsuit.
Ms. Morgan requested that the court give a 'lighting up' instruction:
If you find that the plaintiff had a pre-existing bodily or mental condition which was not causing pain or disability and further find that because of a defendant's negligence that condition was lighted up and made active or that the condition made the plaintiff more subject to injury than a person in normal health, then you should consider the lighting up of the condition and all injuries and damages which were proximately caused by either or both of these occurrences, even though those injuries, due to that condition, may have been greater than those which would have been suffered by a normal person under the circumstances.
The court declined to give this instruction. It reasoned that the evidence 'from the experts was not that this current injury lighted up the arthritic condition but that it resulted in an extension of various body tissues, and that was the basis for the opinions of the physicians.'
Ms. Morgan was awarded $739.68 for past medical expenses, $168 for lost wages and earning capacity, $4,000 for non-economic damages, and nothing for future medical expenses. Ms. Morgan's physicians testified that her future medical expenses would cost between $19,000 and $21,000. She appeals.
ANALYSIS
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