This is an appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon which, as the result of a jury verdict, awarded appellant only $1,500 for injuries caused by the negligence of the appellees. Appellant seeks a new trial contending that she was improperly limited in the presentation of evidence of injury by the District Court’s construction of the pretrial order, that prejudicial evidence was improperly admitted, that the jury was guilty of misconduct in awarding an inadequate verdict in light of her permanent injuries, and that the District Court erred in giving and rejecting certain jury instructions.

Appellant contends that the District Court erred in refusing to allow her to show pain and suffering in child birth and the necessity of shortening the gestation period to seven and one half months caused by her injuries. The District Court stopped her attorney in the midst of discussing this item of damage in his opening statement and refused to allow the presentation of evidence on the point because appellant had failed to disclose such a contention at the pre-trial conference. Appellant urges that the pre-trial order when construed with information known by appellees covers such an element of damage.

The pre-trial order lists as the injuries caused by the accident the following:

Appellees’ attorney knew that appellant was pregnant at least six months before the trial since she was unable to have X-rays taken at his request because of the advice of her obstetrician. However, for the hearing on appellant’s motion for a new trial he executed an affidavit that:

Fed.Rules Civ.Proc. rule 16, 28 U.S.C. A. provides that a pre-trial order “controls the subsequent course of the action, unless modified at the trial to prevent manifest injustice.” One major purpose of such an order is to eliminate surprise by sharpening and simplifying the issues which must be tried. The District of Oregon has strictly required the disclosure of “all legal and fact issues” at the pre-trial conference since “surprise, both as a weapon of attack and defense, is not to be tolerated under the * * * Federal procedure” and the “rules outlaw the sporting theory of justice from Federal courts.”

Here, in effect, appellant asked the District Court to require appellees’ counsel to connect the appellant’s pregnancy with the claimed injury of the pelvic area and the hip deducing that appellant would have difficulty in child birth and claim damages. If appellees’ counsel had had the phrase from the pre-trial order “ * * * a severe tearing, twisting and wrenching of the tendons, muscles, ligaments, bones, nerves and soft tissue of her * * * pelvic area, right hip and leg * * * ” before him when he learned of her pregnancy, he might well have concluded that it was more probable than not that appellant might have some trouble in child birth and claim damages for her disability. However, this would have placed upon him the burden of preparing for a contention which might never arise and which would not be hard to overlook. It seems inconsistent with the purpose of clarification and simplification of issues to place upon a party the burden of connecting subsequently discovered facts with allegations buried in the pre-trial order and acting upon consequences which might come about.

Assuming appellant had no intention of catching appellees off guard at trial, she easily could have moved for an amendment to the pre-trial order to specifically include such a claim for damages. Even after appellant’s counsel was stopped by the trial judge while he was discussing this issue with the jury, no such motion was made.

The District Court did not err in this respect.

The next specification of error concerns the admission by the District Court of testimony of Doctor Jones, a medical expert testifying in behalf of appellees who had examined appellant at appellees’ request. Jones was asked to “relate to the jury what this lady [appellant] told * * * [him] * * * with reference to how she got hurt.” Appellant objected that the answer was “not a history relating to the witness as a treating doctor.” The objection was overruled, and Dr. Jones testified as to what appellant had told him. Her statement as recounted by Jones contradicted her testimony at trial in many important respects.

Appellant contends that allowing in this testimony was reversible error since

However, Dr. Jones was appellees’ medical expert who had examined appellant and the story he told was a statement used against her. A different situation is presented in such a case than where a personal-injury-plaintiff’s doctor seeks to recount the plaintiff’s self-serving hearsay. A statement as to how an injury occurred would not qualify under the “statements of physical condition” exception to the hearsay rule in either case, but a plaintiff’s statement to defendant’s doctor would be properly admissible against the plaintiff under the “admission of a party” hearsay exception. It could also be used to impeach a plaintiff aá a prior inconsistent statement. Wig- more points out that statements to a physician may be used against a party in such a fashion and comments “under both of those principles, the limitations of the * * * [Statements of Physical Condition] * * Hearsay Exception of course have no bearing.”

There was no error here.

Appellant next asserts that the jury was guilty of misconduct in awarding her only $1,500 since the jury found appellees responsible for her injuries and her medical and hospital expenses were shown to be $956.13. This means that she was awarded less than $550 for general damages when there was testimony that she had had numerous injuries as a result of the accident which had required hospitalization, that she would probably have to have an operation, and that she would probably have pain the rest of her life.

The District Court refused to grant a new trial on this ground pointing out that “this is a consistent verdict if the jurors did not believe some of * * * [appellant’s] * * * physicians * * ” One of appellant’s medical experts did not believe that her injuries were permanent or too serious, and Dr. Jones, testifying for appellees, indicated that he did not think surgery was necessary for appellant’s spinal condition and that her pain would disappear.

The verdict is consistent with a conclusion of liability but a disbelief of the assessment of appellant’s injury by her doctors. The jury was free to accept the testimony of the medical experts for either side.

Appellant finally contends that the trial court erred in refusing to give one instruction and in giving three others. However, her attorney failed to raise these objections until the motion for a new trial. F.R.C.P. 51 in part provides :

Even assuming a Court of Appeals has the power to notice “plain error” to correct a miscarriage of justice, this is not a case for the exercise of such a power. The District Court failed to give an instruction estimating appellant’s life expectancy under the Standard Mortality Tables, but appellant was seriously afflicted with tuberculosis, and the tables give no figures as to the life expectancy of such invalids.

The following portions of the instructions are complained of as judicial comment on the evidence unlabeled as such.

In light of the instructions as a whole, these excerpts are not a manifest injustice to appellant justifying this Court in ignoring the text of Rule 51.

The judgment is affirmed.

. Burton v. Weyerhaeuser Timber Co., D.C., D.Or.1941, 1 F.R.D. 571, 572. In 3 Moore’s Federal Practice par. 16.11 it said that “The philosophy of Rule 16 and of the Federal Rules as a whole is exemplified by the decision in Burton v. Weyerhaeuser Timber Co.” See Cherney v. Holmes, 7 Cir., 1950, 185 F.2d 718 , and cases collected in 22 A.L.R.2d 599 (1952). . Reid v. Yellow Cab Co., 1929, 131 Or. 27 , 279 P. 635 , 67 A.L.R. 1 . . See Wigmore on Evidence § 1722 (3d ed., 1940)'. . Wigmore on Evidence § 1048 et seq. (3d ed., 1940); Link v. Eastern Aircraft, etc., 1948, 136 N.J.L. 540 , 57 A.2d 8 . . Wigmore at §§ 1017-1018; Since this was a prior inconsistent statement of ' a party to the action, no foundation for the impeachment was necessary. See, e. g., Tuthill v. Alden, 1948, 239 Iowa 181 , 30 N.W.2d 726 . . Wigmore at § 1723. Also see cases collected in 67 A.L.R. 34 . . Some Courts of Appeal have asserted such a power despite the language of Rule 51. See Hite v. Western Maryland Ry., 4 Cir., 1954, 217 F.2d 781 , certiorari denied 1955, 349 U.S. 960 , 75 S.Ct. 890 , 99 L.Ed. 1283 ; O’Malley v. Cover, 8 Cir., 1955, 221 F.2d 156 ; Allen v. Nelson Dodd Produce Co., 30 Cir., 1953, 207 F.2d 296 . This Court asserted such a power to reverse in cases of plain error before the enactment of Rule 51, but apparently read the Rule literally in Lynch v. Oregon Lumber Co., 9 Cir., 1939, 108 F.2d 283 , and insisted that objections to jury instructions be made to the District Court in all cases. :