Crash lawsuits from Elkhart County go to Ind. Supreme Court
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Justin Leighty
jleighty@etruth.com
GOSHEN — Two similar Elkhart County cases got attention from the Indiana Supreme Court Tuesday, and the result was the same in both rear-end crash lawsuits: Judge Evan Roberts properly allowed witnesses to testify as experts.
The longer-term impact of the cases may be, though, that an expert witness doesn’t have to be a medical doctor to give certain medical testimony.
The first case involved a 2004 crash between a Schupan & Sons truck driven by Henry Bennett and a van driven by John Richmond, who died last year.
Bennett’s attorney objected to Roberts allowing Sheridan McCabe, Ph.D., a psychologist, to testify that the wreck caused brain injury to Richmond.
That’s exactly what McCabe told the jury in Elkhart Superior Court 1, and they awarded $200,000 to Richmond.
The issue of whether a psychologist can give medical testimony is a divisive one in courts across the nation, wrote Justice Frank Sullivan in the unanimous ruling. His testimony, Sullivan wrote, gave “his opinion as to the existence and evaluation of a brain injury that he in fact was uniquely qualified to offer, especially considering his testmony that brain injuries such as Richmond’s often go undiagnosed by medical professionals for various reasons.”
The court ruled Roberts didn’t abuse his discretion “in finding that Dr. McCabe’s testimony was based on reliable scientific principles,” and Roberts “extensively and thoughtfully considered the admissibility of Dr. McCabe’s testimony on three separate occasions during this litigation.”
The second case made reference to the first one from the start. That wreck involved a semi rear-ended by a car as they drove down the road in 2002. The semi driver, Reginald Person, sued the car driver, Carol Shipley, saying she caused back injuries by falling asleep at the wheel and slamming into his truck, which was hauling bananas.
Two experts, Charles Turner, Ph.D., and Dr. Thomas Lazoff, testified that the crash didn’t cause Person’s injuries, and Person lost the lawsuit. He asked the Supreme Court to overturn the finding, arguing that Turner wasn’t qualified to make medical determinations, and contending that Lazoff’s determinations were based on Turner’s.
However, Turner had degrees in mechanical and biomedical engineering, taught at Creighton University School of Medicine and has taught at Purdue and at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis for 30 years. He teaches orthopedic surgery and biomedical engineering and teaches a course in biomechanics, according to the ruling, also authored by Sullivan.
They ruled that Roberts’ determination “that Dr. Turner’s opinions were based on reliable scientific principles that could be applied to the facts at issue” wasn’t an abuse of discretion, and said Dr. Lazoff’s testimony shouldn’t be thrown out because it was based on Turner’s.
