HURLEY v. HEART PHYSICIANS, P.C

ipment Co., 253 Conn. 787, 756 A.2d 237 (2000); and because the physicians were not impleaded under principles of contribution or indemnity, and accordingly, were not parties to the pending action. The plaintiff has not raised these claims on appeal.

The trial court instructed the jury that "the defendant may present any evidence to rebut the plaintiff's claim that [Kling's] statements and conduct were the cause of [the plaintiffs] cardiac arrest. In your consideration of whether [the plaintiff has] met [her] burden as to the element[s] of proximate cause, you should also consider evidence of alternative causes. In other words you should consider whether [the plaintiffs] cardiac arrest was caused solely by other persons or factors over which the defendant had no authority or control. In this case, [the defendant] cannot be held liable if you find that other persons or factors alone or in combination, either before or after September 14, 1998, were the sole cause of [the plaintiffs] cardiac arrest."

The trial court instructed the jury that "[i]n connection with your assessment of the element of causation, you have heard evidence regarding the acts and omissions of [the plaintiffs] treating physicians, including [Landesman] and [Charles Kleinman]. You have further heard evidence that the negligence of these physicians, whether individually or combined, caused [the plaintiffs] cardiac arrest." The trial court then proceeded to define the standard of care for a physician and concluded by instructing the jury that it "should consider evidence of [the physicians'] actions and omissions and alleged negligence in your determination of the sole proximate cause of [the plaintiffs] cardiac arrest."

Our analysis is guided by the applicable standard of review. "The trial court's ruling on evidentiary matters will be overturned only upon a showing of a clear abuse of the court's discretion. . . . We will make every reasonable presumption in favor of upholding the trial court's ruling, and only upset it for a manifest abuse of discretion. . . . [Thus, our] review of such rulings is limited to the questions of whether the trial court correctly applied the law and reasonably could have reached the conclusion that it did. . . . Even when a trial court's evidentiary ruling is deemed to be improper, we must determine whether that ruling was so harmful as to require a new trial. . . . In other words, an evidentiary ruling will result in a new trial only if the ruling was both wrong and harmful. . . . Finally, the standard in a civil case for determining whether an improper ruling was harmful is whether the . . . ruling [likely affected] the result." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Connecticut Light Power Co. v. Gilmore, 289 Conn. 88, 128, 956 A.2d 1145 (2008). Moreover, "it is well established that, [i]n the absence of a showing that the jury failed or declined to follow the court's instructions, we presume that it heeded them." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Wiseman v. Armstrong, supra, 295 Conn. 113.

We previously have held that when a jury does not reach an issue in returning a verdict, alleged improprieties relating to that issue are harmless. In Kalams v. Giacchetto, 268 Conn. 244, 246, 842 A.2d 1100 (2004), the plaintiff in a medical malpractice action appealed from the decision of the trial court granting the defendant's motion in limine precluding testimony from the plaintiffs expert witness. The jury returned a verdict for the defense, indicating on the interrogatory forms that the plaintiff had proved neither liability nor causation. Id., 249. On appeal, this court held that, even if the decision of the trial court granting the motion in limine was incorrect, the exclusion of the evidence was harmless because "[t]he jury was not required to reach the issue of causation because, as evidenced by its answers to the jury interrogatories, it first determined that the defendant had not breached the standard of care. Accordingly, we conclude that it is not reasonably probable that testimony on causation would have affected the result." Id., 250; see also Murphy v. Soracco, 174 Conn. 165, 166, 383 A.2d 1350 (1978) (because jury verdict in favor of defendant in motor vehicle accident as to liability was supported by evidence, any error as to damages was harmless); Klein v. Norwalk Hospital, 113 Conn. App. 771, 780, 967 A.2d 1228 (relying on Kalams in holding that any error in precluding or admitting testimony in medical malpractice action was harmless because jury found no breach of standard of care and did not reach causation), cert. granted, 292 Conn. 913, 973 A.2d 662 (2009); Rubel v. Wainwright, 86 Conn. App. 728, 747, 862 A.2d 863 (citing Kalams in holding that any error in permitting testimony in support of defendant's special defense of comparative negligence was harmless because jury found that plaintiff failed to demonstrate defendant was negligent in motor vehicle accident), cert. denied, 273 Conn. 919, 871 A.2d 1028 (2005).

Even if the evidence of the physicians' negligence was improperly admitted, we must conclude that it is not reasonably probable that the evidence affected the result of the trial — that the defendant was not liable to the plaintiff. In accordance with our jurisprudence and the lack of evidence to the contrary, we presume that the jury followed the trial court's charging instructions and did not review any of the alternative proximate cause evidence when considering interrogatory number one as to the defendant's liability. See Gajewski v. Pavelo, 229 Conn. 829, 837, 643 A.2d 1276 (1994) ("[i]t is presumed that the jury follows the instructions given by the court"). By answering "no" on interrogatory number one as to the defendant's liability, the jury did not reach interrogatory number two and, consequently, the jury did not consider evidence of the negligence of the plaintiff's treating physicians. As a result, even if evidence of the treating physicians' negligence was improperly admitted, it was harmless.

The judgment is affirmed.

In this opinion the other justices concurred.