Stevens v. Gordon

118 Wash. App. 43
CourtCourt of Appeals of Washington
DecidedAugust 14, 2003
DocketNo. 21286-6-III
StatusPublished
Cited by33 cases

This text of 118 Wash. App. 43 (Stevens v. Gordon) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Washington primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Stevens v. Gordon, 118 Wash. App. 43 (Wash. Ct. App. 2003).

Opinions

Schultheis, J.

Stacey Stevens filed a suit for damages incurred in an automobile collision caused by Pat Gordon’s negligence. After mandatory arbitration, Mr. Gordon requested a trial de novo. Summary judgment was granted for Ms. Stevens on the issue of liability and trial proceeded on the issue of damages. The jury awarded Ms. Stevens damages for past and future economic loss and noneconomic damages.

On appeal, Mr. Gordon challenges the trial court’s exclusion of a medical expert that had been listed as a consulting expert pursuant to CR 26(b) during arbitration. He also contends the trial court erred in using Ms. Stevens’s jury instruction on proximate cause, and argues that the evidence did not support the jury instructions or verdicts on future economic loss, past wage loss, or noneconomic damages. We find that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the expert’s testimony. Further finding that the proximate cause instruction was not erroneous and that [47]*47the evidence supports the instructions and the verdict, we affirm.

Facts

In March 1998, Ms. Stevens was injured when Mr. Gordon suddenly pulled out in front of her at an intersection and she crashed into his truck. She sustained a whiplash, temporomandibular joint injury, and bruising of her knee, arm, and hand. A self-employed manicurist, Ms. Stevens was unable to work for a week, and had difficulty working after the collision due to headaches and neck and jaw pain. After about three years of treatment by her primary physician, a physical medicine specialist, a chiropractor, and a physical therapist, she reportedly felt about 80 to 90 percent improved.

Ms. Stevens filed suit against Mr. Gordon and Jane Doe Gordon in March 2001 for damages, including past and future medical expenses, past and future wage loss, emotional distress, and pain. Mr. Gordon denied liability. The original case schedule order set a discovery cutoff date of December 24, 2001 and a trial date of February 25, 2002. In October 2001, Mr. Gordon disclosed Dr. Stephen Sears as one of the expert witnesses he intended to call at the time of trial.

In late November 2001, the parties agreed to set the case for mandatory arbitration. During a deposition taken November 20, Ms. Stevens revealed to Mr. Gordon that she had been injured in a second collision the week before. She described new injuries to her wrist, neck, shoulders, and back and stated that she was being treated by Dr. Peter Rinaldi, her primary care physician. Mr. Gordon arranged to have Dr. Sears perform a CR 35 examination of Ms. Stevens, which was conducted in December 2001.1 Dr. Sears examined Ms. Stevens and they discussed the inju[48]*48ries she received in the second collision. Finding that the symptoms of the 1998 accident had been aggravated by the 2001 accident, Dr. Sears concluded “[t]here is no scientific way to determine what percentage of her symptoms is related to either accident. If a number has to be chosen, I myself feel that 50 percent of her symptoms are a result of each accident.” Clerk’s Papers (CP) at 49.

On January 21, 2002, Mr. Gordon deposed Dr. Rinaldi, who indicated that by the time of the 2001 collision, Ms. Stevens was 80 to 90 percent improved from the 1998 injuries. Mr. Gordon sent Dr. Rinaldi’s records to Dr. Sears on January 22 and requested an addendum opinion. In a letter to plaintiff’s counsel on January 28, Mr. Gordon’s counsel stated as follows:

Given the very favorable testimony of Dr. Rinaldi, at this time 1 will not be submitting Dr. Sears’ report at the arbitration. Pursuant to [the] Mothershead[2] decision, neither party may submit or even mention the report at arbitration. I reserve the right to still call Dr. Sears should this matter go to trial. I will provide you ample notice of that decision, however.

CP at 46. On February 25, Mr. Gordon’s counsel received a letter from Dr. Sears stating that he agreed with Dr. Rinaldi that the second accident caused new injuries to Ms. Stevens unrelated to the first accident.

The case was arbitrated in early March 2002 without the testimony of Dr. Sears. Following a decision that benefited Ms. Stevens, Mr. Gordon demanded a trial de novo. Mr. Gordon’s counsel wrote to Ms. Stevens’s counsel in April 2002 stating that he intended to call Dr. Sears at trial “[i]n light of the changed testimony of Dr. Rinaldi.”3 CP at 47. He also agreed to stipulate to liability in a partial summary judgment order. Later that month, Ms. Stevens moved to exclude Dr. Sears’s trial testimony, arguing that he had not been included in answers to interrogatories and had been [49]*49shielded from discovery by his status as a consulting expert. On May 15, 2002, the trial court granted the motion to exclude the testimony of Dr. Sears.

Trial on the issue of damages was held May 18 and 19, 2002. Dr. Rinaldi testified that the 2001 collision caused additional damage to the neck and paracervical muscles that had been injured in 1998. He noted that the second collision caused new injuries in the neck, lower back, and wrist, but did not affect the jaw area that had been injured in 1998. The jury awarded Ms. Stevens (1) past economic damages of $4,362 (health care costs) and $1,200 (wage loss); (2) future damages of $4,000 (health care costs) and $3,000 (wage loss); and (3) noneconomic damages of $16,500.

Mr. Gordon appeals the order excluding Dr. Sears’s testimony and the judgment on the verdict. As listed in the notice of appeal, he challenges

the trial court’s exclusion of Dr. Sears as an expert witness, the testimony of Dr. Rinaldi regarding the cost of future medical treatment, the trial court’s giving of the jury instruction for future wage loss and future medical damages, the trial court’s giving of the causation instruction, the trial court’s refusal to give the defendants’ proposed causation jury instruction, and the jury award of future economic damages.

CP at 89.

Exclusion of Expert Testimony

Mr. Gordon first challenges the trial court’s exclusion of Dr. Sears as a testifying expert witness. He dedicates much of his brief to the argument that the trial court erred in imposing this sanction for the failure to supplement his answers to interrogatories. However, this was not the basis for the trial court’s decision. Dr. Sears was excluded because he had been shielded from discovery by classifying him a consulting expert prior to the mandatory arbitration.

Generally a party may obtain discovery of any matter that is relevant to the subject matter of the litiga[50]*50tion and that is not privileged. CR 26(b)(1); Johnson v. McCay, 77 Wn. App. 603, 607, 893 P.2d 641 (1995). One limitation on the scope of discovery precludes discovery of the facts known and opinions held by experts not to be called at trial. CR 26(b)(5)(B); Mothershead v. Adams, 32 Wn. App. 325, 327-28, 647 P.2d 525 (1982). The opinions and even identities of these “consulting experts” are protected because they are considered part of the party’s team and their opinions are treated as work product. 15A Karl B. Tegland & Douglas J. Ende, Washington Practice: Washington Handbook on Civil Procedure § 39.4 (2003).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
118 Wash. App. 43, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stevens-v-gordon-washctapp-2003.