finding evidence of cost of surgery admissible where doctor testified surgery would be necessary only if conservative treatment failed
How later courts described this case
- finding evidence of cost of surgery admissible where doctor testified surgery would be necessary only if conservative treatment failed
- testimony regarding cost of possible future surgery was admissible despite fact that expert testified that surgery was conditioned on failure of other treatment and was not reasonably certain
- plaintiff's need for future surgery contingent on failure of more conservative treatment
- testimony regarding future damages is incompetent if it lacks “reasonable certainty”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
HIGGINS, Judge,
concurring.
I concur with the majority in affirmance of the judgment for plaintiff against defendants. I do so specially, however, to express my opinion that it is neither neces *288 sary nor appropriate to tailor an exception to the hearsay rule and overrule Holmes v. Terminal R.R. Association of St. Louis, 363 Mo. 1178 , 257 S.W.2d 922 (1953), in order to deal with the error charged to admission of the hospital record in this case.
Admission of the record excerpt, if erroneous, was not prejudicial because everything recited in the excerpt had already been established by plaintiff’s testimony prior to admission of the record. Hunter v. St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company, 315 S.W.2d 689 (Mo.1958); Harris v. Goggins, 374 S.W.2d 6 (Mo. banc 1963); State v. Zagorski, 632 S.W.2d 475 (Mo. banc 1982).