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Hobbs v. Harken6/9/1998
Here, however, Mr. Harken does not dispute that Mr. Hobbs was entitled to submit a claim for future pain and suffering. Similarly, the evidence that Mr. Hobbs was still suffering the debilitating effects of his injuries at trial and the evidence of continued headaches and back and neck pain supported submission of some future period of suffering or of an intermittent loss of ability to work. There was no evidence from which the jury could determine that his present loss of earning capacity would continue unabated for twenty years, however. "The rule is that an expert witness can only testify as to the future consequences of an injury if they are reasonably certain to occur." Stuart v. State Farm Mutual Auto. Ins. Co., 699 S.W.2d 450, 455 (Mo. App. 1985).
For this reason, we find First National Bank of Fort Smith v. Kansas City Southern Ry. Co., 865 S.W.2d 719, 738 (Mo. App. 1993), to be more on point. The plaintiff in that case presented evidence of serious physical injuries resulting from an accident, but failed to offer medical testimony that the plaintiff would become a paraplegic or be confined to a wheelchair. The trial court nonetheless admitted the testimony of a "life care plan expert" who assumed that the plaintiff would become a paraplegic or confined to a wheelchair and testified that this care would cost $1.8 million. We held that because the life care plan expert's opinion lacked substantial eviden-tiary support, the court erred in admitting this opinion, for "'future damages in a personal injury action are not compensable unless reasonably certain to occur.'" Id., quoting, Bennett v. Mallinckrodt, 698 S.W.2d 854, 866 (Mo. App. 1985), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1176 (1986). We further found that it was "not enough for the doctor to testify to the possibility of a certain result; his testimony should show that it is reasonably certain to follow the injury. Consequences which are contingent, speculative, or merely possible are not proper to be considered by the jury in ascertaining the damages, for it would be plainly unjust to compel one to pay damages for results that may or may not ensue and which are merely problematical."
Here, as in First National, there was no medical testimony supporting the assumptions underlying Dr. Ward's estimated damages. In First National, the assumption underlying the estimates of damages was that the plaintiff would become paraplegic or confined to a wheelchair; medical experts had testified that these were possibilities. In the present case, an essential assumption underlying Dr. Ward's calculations of future lost earnings was that Mr. Hobbs' vestibular condition would remain unchanged for twenty years. However, evidence of this fact, relied on by Dr. Ward, simply was not admitted either at the time he testified or later.
Specifically, Dr. Ward testified that he assumed that Mr. Hobbs' vestibular disorder was permanent and that his symptoms would continue for twenty years. He also acknowledged that, if this assumption were wrong, his analysis of future loss of income would be significantly affected and would make his estimates misleading. He based this assumption on answers to an unsigned ques-tionnaire returned from Mr. Hobbs' attorney and on a letter from Dr. Coffman which stated that "it is hard to predict how [Mr. Hobbs] will progress in the future although typically these inner ear injuries take months to resolve and sometimes patients are left with a permanent vestibular disorder." He may have assumed that, at trial, another witness would be able to give an based on reasonable certainty. Neither Dr. Coffman nor another physician stated that to a reasonable degree of medical certainty Mr. Hobbs' vestibular disorder would be permane
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