HARRISBURG – A three-judge panel of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania has rejected a second call for a new trial from the Lehigh Valley Health Network, in a case in which its negligence was found by a jury to have left a woman confined to a wheelchair.
Superior Court Judge Megan McCarthy King authored the May 26 opinion, while fellow judges Victor P. Stabile and Correale F. Stevens joined it.
Plaintiff Betty Shiflett underwent knee surgery at Lehigh Valley Hospital in April 2012 and while recovering in the post-surgical unit, she fell out of bed. After being transferred to a therapeutic unit, Shiflett said she told nurses about her knee, but nothing was done until a week later – when doctors told her she suffered an avulsion fracture of her left tibial tuberosity.
Subsequent surgeries were unsuccessful and left Shiflett with chronic, unremitting pain in her left knee and permanently wheelchair-bound. After initiating litigation in February 2014, a Lehigh County jury awarded Shiflett $2.4 million two years later, in February 2016. The hospital appealed to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania.
The Superior Court found the verdict sheet did not apportion the award of damages by claim, and therefore, it was impossible to know whether some of the award was attributable to the finding of negligence on a claim later found to be time-barred.
Subsequently, the Superior Court concluded that a new trial limited to damages was required and the Shifletts appealed that decision to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
The state’s highest court reversed the prior decision awarding the hospital a new trial and remanded the case to the Superior Court to consider the Lehigh Valley Hospital’s outstanding appellate claims – which went unaddressed in its first appearance before the Superior Court.
According to the Superior Court, “A new trial is granted only where the verdict is so contrary to the evidence as to shock one’s sense of justice, not where the evidence is conflicting or where the court might have reached a different conclusion on the same facts.”
According to the Superior Court, the hospital should not stand to receive a new trial for alleged errors of evidence procedure and the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas trial judge’s to reduce the $2.4 million jury verdict.
Rather, the court found that the trial judge was right to bar the hospital from admitting possibly prejudicial evidence, which suggested Shiflett’s post-injury emotional distress was tied to her son’s criminal conviction for indecent assault of a minor, rather than her knee injury.
According to King, the Lehigh County court was correct in balancing the prejudice such evidence may cause against its potential value.
“The record confirms the trial court conducted the requisite balancing test concerning the probative value of the nature and details of Mrs. Shiflett’s son’s conviction against its prejudicial effect. After deciding the prejudicial effect of admitting these details was greater than its probative value, the court still permitted the Hospital to ask about Mrs. Shiflett’s son’s ‘legal problems,’ in pursuit of its trial strategy to show the cause of Mrs. Shiflett’s depression was multi-faceted. We see no reason to disrupt the court’s evidentiary ruling,” King stated.
Furthermore, the Superior Court found that a decision on possible reduction of damages fell squarely to the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas – and as it found there was no abuse of discretion on the part of the trial judge and the verdict wasn’t so disproportionate as to shock the conscience, there was no need for remittitur.
“The decision to grant or deny remittitur is within the trial court’s sound discretion, and will be overturned only upon a showing of abuse of discretion or error of law. We cannot substitute our judgment for that of the fact-finder, and we must view the record with consideration of the evidence accepted by the jury,” King concluded.
Superior Court of Pennsylvania case 2293 EDA 2016
Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas case 2014-C-0388
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com