FIRST DIVISION
January 27, 2003

PRESIDING JUSTICE GORDON delivered the opinion of the court:

James Kaneshiro (defendant) appeals from the judgment of the circuit court of CookCounty in favor of Ann McGovern (plaintiff) in this personal injury action, entered following ajury trial. Defendant contends that the trial court erred by denying submission of his specialinterrogatory which would have provided a check on the jury's assessment of plaintiff'scontributory negligence. Defendant further contends that the trial court abused its discretion byallowing the jury to hear the testimony of plaintiff's two physicians because plaintiff failed toproperly disclose the content of their testimony during discovery, in violation of Supreme CourtRule 213 (177 Ill. 2d R. 213). For the following reasons, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

Testimony at trial from both plaintiff and defendant established that on May 9, 1996, eachwas in a separate car driving northbound on Northwest Highway in Chicago, Illinois. The daywas rainy and both parties had their windshield wipers on. Plaintiff's car was in the same lane asdefendant's and was directly ahead of him. Ahead of plaintiff's car was a mini-school bus drivenby the employee of codefendant N&S Transportation-not a party to the instant appeal. Plaintifftestified that the school bus came to a sudden stop without signaling and she abruptly applied herbrakes and came to a stop just behind the bus. On cross-examination, defense counsel elicitedevidence that plaintiff may have been aware that school buses turn left from the site of theaccident into the school parking lot that abuts Northwest Highway.

Upon seeing plaintiff's brake lights, defendant testified that he also applied his brakes,went into a skid and hit plaintiff's car from the rear. Plaintiff's car then slid into the rear of theschool bus. Plaintiff testified that the top of her chest and her shoulders hit the steering wheelupon impact. Plaintiff also testified that she was wearing her seat belt at the time. She furthertestified that three weeks after the accident, she sought medical treatment from orthopedicsurgeon Dr. Jorge Prieto.

In response to interrogatories submitted by defendant during discovery, plaintiff identifiedDr. Prieto as a fact witness and indicated that there were, at that time, no opinion witnesses to bepresented. In a supplement to interrogatories posed by codefendant N&S Transportation,plaintiff indicated that Dr. Prieto would provide opinion testimony on the cause of her injuriesand on their permanency. A copy of this supplement was also provided to defendant. Dr. Prietowas the subject of both a discovery deposition and an evidence deposition, but the discoverydeposition is not a part of the record.

Defendant objected to the admission of Dr. Prieto's testimony, alleging that the disclosurewas insufficient under Rule 213. The trial judge allowed Dr. Prieto's opinion testimony oncausation. Dr. Prieto's evidence deposition was then read at trial and his testimony indicated thathe diagnosed plaintiff as having a rotator cuff injury and prescribed anesthetic injections andexercises. Several months later, Dr. Prieto ordered a scan of plaintiff's shoulder which revealed arotator cuff tear. The record does not indicate that Dr. Prieto gave any testimony concerningpermanency of plaintiff's injury.

Plaintiff also sought to have read into the record the evidence deposition of Dr. MarcAsselmeier, the orthopedic surgeon who ultimately performed surgery on her rotator cuff. Defendant again objected, arguing that Dr. Asselmeier's opinions were disclosed in the samedefective manner as were Dr. Prieto's and, therefore, his testimony should be barred. The trialcourt held that the doctor's opinions about permanency were not properly disclosed and thoseopinions were redacted from the evidence deposition. Through the redacted evidence deposition,Dr. Asselmeier testified to the surgery he performed, stated that it was without complications,and discussed his postoperative assessment of plaintiff. Plaintiff and her husband did testify tothe pain and physical limitations that she experienced before and after surgery.

Prior to deliberations, defendant offered two special interrogatories to check the jury'sverdict on plaintiff's contributory negligence. In his appellate brief, defendant provided a recordcitation for only one of these interrogatories, which read: "Was the Plaintiff immediately beforeand at the time of the occurrence in question guilty of negligence which proximately contributedto cause her alleged injuries?" The trial court refused to tender the interrogatories. Notably, thejury instruction conference at which the interrogatories were discussed, and ultimately rejectedby the trial court, is not a part of the record on appeal.

The jury awarded plaintiff a total amount of damages of $58,261.80, which was reducedto a recoverable amount of $46,609.44 based on its finding in the general verdict that shecontributed 20% of the negligence which proximately caused the accident. The jury awardedzero damages for future pain and suffering. This appeal followed.

ANALYSIS

A. Special Interrogatories

First, defendant contends that the trial court erred in refusing to tender either of his twoproposed special interrogatories on plaintiff's contributory negligence. Defendant argues that theinterrogatories were in proper form and, thus, the trial court had no discretion to refuse to submitthem to the jury. While we agree with defendant that the court erred in failing to submit theinterrogatories, we find that this error was harmless.

As an initial matter, we note that defendant's brief lists two different interrogatoriesproposed to the trial court but the citation to the record provided by defendant mentions only oneof the interrogatories. Because the transcript of the jury instruction conference was not providedto this court, and because defendant provides no citation to the text of the alternative proposedinterrogatory,⁽¹⁾ we will only address the propriety of the cited interrogatory. The citedinterrogatory read: "Was the Plaintiff immediately before and at the time of the occurrence inquestion guilty of negligence which proximately contributed to cause her alleged injuries?"

On another preliminary matter, we note that defendant's failure to include a transcript ofor bystander's report for the jury instruction conference deprives this court of valuableinformation concerning the trial court's assessment of the interrogatory. Although plaintiff raisesno claim of waiver, nor of any prejudice resulting from the incomplete record, we feel obligatedto consider whether defendant's failure to provide a complete record waives his contentions onthis point. An appellant has the burden of presenting this court with a sufficiently completerecord of the lower court proceedings to support a claim of error. La Salle National Bank v. CitySuites, Inc., 325 Ill. App. 3d 780, 788, 758 N.E.2d 382, 389 (2001). Without a complete record,we may well be within our discretion to grant presumptive validity to the lower court's order. However, because the issues raised in this case involve questions of law, which are reviewed denovo (735 ILCS 5/2-1108 (West 2000)) and thus, are not inherently impacted by the failure toinclude the instruction conference colloquy, we may address the merits without a complete reportof the proceedings. McNames v. Rockford Park District, 185 Ill. App. 3d 291, 293, 540 N.E.2d1119, 1120 (1989) (absence of report of proceedings need not bar appellate review as the issuewas solely a question of law). See also Dubey v. Abam Building Corp., 266 Ill. App. 3d 44, 46,639 N.E.2d 215, 217 (1994) (appellate court may address merits of case with incomplete recordif determination can be made from that record); Korogluyan v. Chicago Title & Trust Co., 213Ill. App. 3d 622, 627-28, 572 N.E.2d 1154, 1159 (1991). Because the tender of specialinterrogatories provides the primary means by which parties can check a general verdict, weconclude that consideration of the merits in this case is appropriate.

Special interrogatories guard the integrity of a general verdict by testing that verdictagainst the jury's determination as to specific issues of ultimate fact. Simmons v. Garces, 198 Ill.2d 541, 556 (2002) (special interrogatory was incompatible with general verdict and wascontrolling). In theory, "the jury more clearly comprehends a particularized special interrogatorythan a composite of all questions in a case, and therefore, presumably, it focuses its attention onthe question presented. This device is therefore used to check on the jury's deliberations." 3AC.Nichols, Nichols Illinois Civil Practice with Forms