HPS Appellate Team Successfully Defends 2020 HPS Verdict on Appeal
HPS Appellate Team Successfully Defends 2020 HPS Verdict on Appeal
Chicago, IL
August 12, 2022
Jacob Goldstein, Co-Chair HPS Appellate Group, successfully defended a 2020 HPS verdict on appeal before the Illinois Appellate Court, First District.
The plaintiffs appealed the 2020 defensive verdict in a case that was defended by HPS attorneys Marilee Clausing and Matt Kaminski. The case involved claims that a family medicine physician failed to diagnose and treat the plaintiff's rare blood disorder, which caused a catastrophic stroke and permanent neurological damage.
Jake, who handled the appeal on behalf of their physician client, said that the appeal was ultimately limited to one pretrial ruling that the plaintiffs claimed denied them a fair trial.
"Plaintiffs did not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence but instead sought a new trial on the grounds that the court erred in granting a defense motion in limine that limited certain testimony plaintiffs sought to introduce at trial," he said.
The motion referred to requested that the court bar testimony by the plaintiff's wife concerning an alleged out-of-court discussion she had with the defendant physician wherein she claims she requested additional testing prior to the series of strokes that caused her husband's injuries.
"This appeal shows the benefit of having an in-house, award-winning appellate practice group that can work as part of our trial teams, assisting us with motion practice both during and following trial," said Marilee. "In this case, Jake helped us craft the motion in limine in 2020. We were able to write it anticipating that it could be the grounds for an appeal in the future. He then successfully defended our verdict at both the post-trial motion stage and then again in the appellate court."
The Appellate Court's decision affirming the 2020 verdict was based on two main factors, according to Jake.
"This was an interesting appeal because even though it was limited to only one point of trial error as grounds for a new trial, it was ultimately other procedural issues that served as the basis of the appellate court's decision." Specifically, the plaintiffs failed to file a complete appellate record containing the motion in limine at issue and/or the transcripts from either the initial hearing on the motion or the trial, in violation of Illinois Supreme Court Rules. Jake argued that plaintiff's failure to provide a complete appellate record was fatal to their appeal because, without a copy of the motion or the relevant transcripts, plaintiffs could not make a showing that the trial court erred in its ruling or that the ruling caused plaintiffs any prejudice.
The court ultimately agreed and found that for this reason alone, the jury's verdict had to be affirmed. But even if the plaintiff could have shown that the trial court erred in its ruling, the court still found that the verdict had to be affirmed because the plaintiff could not show that the error affected the outcome of the trial.
"Under the 'general verdict' or 'two-issue rule,' we urged that plaintiffs' sole contention of error could never serve as the basis for a new trial because where, as here, we raised two defenses – that we were not negligent and that any negligence was not a proximate cause of plaintiff's injuries – the jury's verdict could be sustained based on the proximate cause issue which was not connected to plaintiffs' sole contention on appeal, and thus was free of any error," Jake said. The court agreed and found that notwithstanding plaintiffs' failure to file a complete appellate record, it would have still affirmed the jury's verdict under the "two-issue" or "general verdict" rule.
Marilee said that the appeal decision reminded her of what she thought after the trial in 2020. Then, she said that she was proudest of how the people at HPS worked together to prepare and defend the firm's clients.
"Jake, and all the partners, associates, paralegals, and legal assistants who work on appeals are part of the bigger HPS Team," she said. "They serve our clients in any way that is needed. In this instance, they helped us with the motion in limine during the trial, the post-trial motion after the verdict, and then tirelessly defended our client's victory when it was appealed."