Hughes v. Kilgore

DRAPER, P. J.

Each party sought recovery for personal injuries and property damage sustained in a two-car collision. Jury verdict was for plaintiff and against defendant-cross-complainant, who appeals.

Both cars were traveling north on the Bayshore Highway. Plaintiff testified that she was in the inner or fast lane and that defendant's car swerved into her lane, causing the right front of plaintiff’s car to strike the left side of defendant’s vehicle. Defendant testified that she was in the fast lane when the traffic ahead compelled her to stop, her braking having caused her car to turn at an angle. She said that plaintiff's car, coming from the rear, struck her car along its rear left side. The two drivers were the only eyewitnesses. Photographs of the two cars, showing the damage to each in detail, were in evidence and are eoncededly accurate. A highway patrolman testified that there were no skidmarks. He also fixed locations at which the cars came to rest after the collision, Plaintiff called a professor of engineering, who testified, over objections, to the angle of each car at time of impact, and that defendant’s car was moving at that moment. Plaintiff's attorney, in argument to the jury, suggested assigning a per day value to pain and suffering. Defense objections to this argument were overruled. Both incidents are assigned as error.

It is clear that an expert's opinion is not barred merely because it concerns an ultimate fact to be determined by the jury (People v. Cole, 47 Cal.2d 99, 103-106 [301 P.2d 854, 56 A.L.R.2d 1435] ;

People

v.

Peoples,

212 Cal.App.2d 581, 583

[543]

[28 Cal.Rptr. 120]; see Witkin, Cal. Evidence (1958) pp. 223-224). Appellant argues, however, that expert opinion is not admissible in automobile accident cases when “the factors involved are too varying and indefinite to constitute the basis of an opinion”

(Francis

v.

Sauve,