While the court granted the Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment in terms of the liability issue in this rear-end accident, the court denied the Plaintiff’s argument that, given the Defendant's concession on liability, the Plaintiff was, therefore, entitled to a further concession on the issue of causation relative to the physical injuries and damages alleged by the Plaintiff.
The Plaintiff asserted that he was entitled to summary judgment on the “factual cause” question where both parties’ medical experts attributed some degree of injury to the accident.
Here, citing to Pennsylvania Superior Court precedent, the federal court ruled that a defense expert’s opinion that a Plaintiff suffered an injury, based on the history given to the expert, is not an uncontroverted admission on the issue of causation by a defendant.
The court confirmed the well-settled rule that a jury was free to render its own decision on the case presented even where the experts of the parties may agree, to some extent, that the Plaintiff sustained an injury as a result of the accident.
More specifically, the court reasoned that “[a] medical expert report concluding that, based on the evidence provided (including a Plaintiff’s history and subjective complaints), the ‘mechanism of injury’ and clinical findings were ‘consistent with’ some of the allegedly consequent injuries (i.e., some injury could be resultant from the collision), is simply not a concession. To the contrary, it is an insufficient basis on which to usurp a trial jury’s credibility determinations and broader fact-finding role.” See Op. at 5.
As such, the court denied the Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment based on the causation issues presented.
Anyone wishing to review a copy of this decision may click this LINK.
I send thanks to Attorney Joseph Hudock of the Pittsburgh law office of Summers, McDonnell, Hudock, Guthrie & Rauch for bringing this case to my attention.
As such, the court denied the Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment based on the causation issues presented.
Anyone wishing to review a copy of this decision may click this LINK.
I send thanks to Attorney Joseph Hudock of the Pittsburgh law office of Summers, McDonnell, Hudock, Guthrie & Rauch for bringing this case to my attention.
Source of image: Photo by Nikita Nikitin on www.pexels.com.