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Wrobleski v. De Lara4/30/1998
s an expert. Here, there was good reason to suspect that the amount might be substantial, given that Dr. Tilling had testified as an expert in numerous jurisdictions far removed from his home state of New York, and he had been paid, in 1995 alone, $27,000 by appellant's counsel.
B. Issue 2
Appellant contends that the trial judge committed reversible error by failing to give Maryland Civil Pattern Jury Instruction 10:3 - susceptibility to injury . This issue will not detain us long. First of all, Pattern Instruction 10:3 concerns damages. The jury never reached the damage issue. So even if the failure to instruct was error, it was harmless. In any event, the trial court clearly did not err in failing to give the instruction. The susceptibility to injury instruction is applicable only to cases in which the injury suffered as a result of the purported negligence of a defendant is greater than it would have been if the plaintiff had been stronger or healthier. For example, if a hemophiliac is cut by flying glass in an automobile collision and his blood does not clot properly, causing serious injury, it is no excuse for the defendant to say that a person with normal blood would not have suffered as greatly. But in the case at hand, there was no evidence presented and no argument advanced that the injuries Ms. Wrobleski suffered as a result of the bowel perforation were any greater than the injuries that anyone else would have sustained if his or her bowel had been perforated. Ms. Wrobleski's argument that she was entitled to the instruction because the evidence showed that the bowel perforation was more likely to occur in her case because of her pre-existing condition of adhesions in her abdomen from prior surgeries misses the point, because it was undisputed that the pre-existing adhesions had no impact on the extent of the damages caused by the alleged negligence of Dr. de Lara.
JUDGMENT AFFIRMED; COSTS TO BE PAID BY APPELLANT.
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