Miller & Zois Summary of Davis v. Maute    

     In this case, the Plaintiff, Rosetta Davis suffered personal injuries when a car driven by the Defendant, Franz Maute ran a red light and collided with Plaintiff's car. Ms. Davis alleged that she sustained serious personal injuries as a result of the accident. While admitting responsibility for the accident, Ms. Maute's attorneys argued that Ms. Davis did not suffer significant injury.

     At the trial on damages, Davis's personal injury lawyer presented expert medical testimony that the collision caused Davis to twist suddenly and that this motion caused permanent injuries in plaintiff's back, neck, and ribs. Davis' car accident lawyer also presented evidence that the pain caused by these injuries was impacting her day-to-day life. The Defendant's personal injury lawyer argued that Davis had only soft-tissue injuries from the car accident and that any further injury from the car accident were due to a preexisting arthritic condition unrelated to the auto accident. To support the argument that the injuries were minor, Defendant's lawyer introduced pictures of the vehicles in the auto accident which showed minimal damage.

     The jury returned an award of $8,766 to the plaintiff, including $6,207 in stipulated medical expenses. Believing that the jury did not adequately account for the permanency of Davis' injuries, the trial court granted Davis' motion for additur and awarded Davis a total of $12,000. Plaintiff's lawyer refused to accept this verdict on his client's behalf and appealed, arguing that the pictures of car were unduly prejudicial to the Plaintiff's case and should not have been admitted into evidence.   

     The Delaware Supreme Court ruled that the defendant's lawyer in a personal injury case may not contend that the damage to the vehicle in a car accident correlates to the extent of the damage to the cars, unless the defendant proffers expert testimony on the issue of the correlation. In the absence of such testimony, defendant's personal injury lawyer cannot argue to the jury that minimal property damage to a plaintiff's car in an auto accident translates into minimal personal injuries to the plaintiff amounts to speculation. Specifically, the court found that "absent such expert testimony, any inference by the jury that minimal damage to the plaintiffs car translates into minimal personal injuries to the plaintiff would necessarily amount to unguided speculation." This rule takes discretion out of the judge's hands as to whether to admit the photographs of the property damage to the parties vehicle in an auto accident. The Maryland personal injury lawyer on behalf of the Plaintiff in Mason v. Lynch, 388 Md. 37, 878 A.2d 588 (2005) sought to advance this argument in a Prince George's County case, urging the Maryland Court of Appeals to adopt this rule.

 

Back to Motion in Limine to Exclude Photographs of Auto Accident
Back to Maryland Law Update
Back to Maryland Personal Injury Attorney Help Center