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Hunt v. Mercy Medical Center5/29/1998
st the worry. I knew, I mean, the worry on his face.
Q. Okay. You mentioned the fact that he had no problem sleeping before. How, if any, did that change, his sleeping?
A. He was up every night, walking around. Just couldn't sleep. Worried.
Q. On the occasions that you would go out and you were with other people, what did you observe about his interaction with other people after he found out that he had cancer and subsequently learned he didn't have cancer, as opposed to before, when he would interact with other people?
A. Oh, he was more quiet. And he was there, but not there, you know. Just extremely quiet. Didn't have too much to say.
Q. We talked about Mr. Dell[']uomo's emotional state during this period, but what did you notice physically? What physical effects did the radiation have on him?
A. Being extremely tired. Extremely tired. That's what I really noticed. He had a few bowel problems, eating problems, but the tiredness was what I really noticed.
Q. ... he symptoms that you described, did they continue until his death, or ...
A. Yes.
Q. How was he up until the time just before he died? How was he in terms of the things you described?
A. It was constant. From the very time that he was told he had it until he was told he didn't have it until he passed away. I mean, I lived with that every single day. There wasn't a day went by that you could (sic) see it. Deteriorated. Worry. Stress. It can kill you.
This testimony, together with Mr. Dell'uomo's own testimony, shows a reasonable basis for his anxiety and is sufficient to render Mr. Dell'uomo's emotional injury capable of objective determination. Certainly for any person to be told by his or her physician that such person has cancer is a shock. There is testimony from which a jury could find that his fear and stress caused him to experience fatigue, sleeplessness, constipation, and mood change, as well as from which a jury could determine an appropriate level of damages for each. We thus find that his emotional distress comes within the physical injury rule and is compensable.
-expert testimony-
As previously noted, the lower court determined, at least implicitly, that expert medical testimony was required to prove causation in this case. Appellant argues that the causation issue is one within the competence of the jury. Appellees do not dispute that strong emotions can flow from the news that one has cancer, but they do raise a challenge to the causal connection between that emotional response and Mr. Dell'uomo's symptoms. The seminal case on the need for expert medical testimony remains Wilhelm v. State Traffic Safety Comm'n, 230 Md. 91 (1962), and the following passage is still the leading summation of this issue:
There are, unquestionably, many occasions where the causal connection between a defendant's negligence and a disability claimed by a plaintiff does not need to be established by expert testimony. Particularly this is true when the disability develops coincidentally with, or within a reasonable time after, the negligent act, or where the causal connection is clearly apparent from the illness itself and the circumstances surrounding it, or where the cause of the injury relates to matters of common experience, knowledge, or observation of laymen. However, where the cause of an injury claimed to have resulted from a negligent act is a complicated medical question involving fact finding which properly falls with the province of medical experts (especially when the symptoms of the injury are purely subjective in nature, or where disability does not develop u
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