Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
The following blog entry is written from a defendant’s position as trial approaches. Reviewing this kind of briefing should help potential plaintiffs and clients better understand how parties in personal injury cases present such issues to the court.
It is worth noting that situations similar to those described in this medical malpractice case could just as easily occur at any of the healthcare facilities in the area, such as Kaiser Permanente, UC Davis Medical Center, Mercy, or Sutter.
(Please also note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this wrongful death case and its proceedings.)
ARGUMENT
As a threshold issue, Plaintiff cites to no authority indicating that documents, later discovered, cannot be produced in a supplemental discovery response. Plaintiff, by serving a supplement demand before trial, must be prepared for the event that additional documentation or responses would be provided. Defendants did indeed supplement and did so in a timely manner. Plaintiff is well-aware that this is acceptable because she produced her own additional documents. Plaintiff actually produces documentation of decedent David Hill’s pay, documentation that most certainly existed at the commencement of this litigation. For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.
Plaintiffs sole goal in targeting this particular document for exclusion seems to be the mere fact that she does not like what the evidence proves. This is not a viable reason for excluding evidence. Most evidence is prejudicial to the party against whom it is offered. But that is not enough to exclude it under Evidence Code section 352. People v. Doolin (2009) 45 Cal.4th 390, 439 ( prejudicial is not synonymous with damaging ); Rufo v. Simpson (2001) 86 Cal.App.4th 573, 597 (Prejudicial … does not mean “damaging to a party’s case,” it means evoking an emotional response that has very little to do with the issue on which the evidence is offered ).
Here, Plaintiff cannot demonstrate any type of prejudice and says nothing about how having the documents earlier would have impacted the case.
CONCLUSION
For all the above stated reasons, defendants should be allowed to include in evidence the records from American Medical Response.
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.