Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Massachusetts

Re: emotional distress

Unfortunately, failing to admit your evidence of emotional distress is significantly more than just a "procedural" mistake. Its a substantive failure to admit prima facie evidence in support of your emotional distress claims. Without admissible evidence going to those claims, it is highly unlikely the judge will let you make argument on nonexistent evidence. (Closings permit argument of reasonle inferences drawn from the admissible evidence only.)

Generally, a pro se litigant's choice to proceed unrepresented does not result in any leniency at trial or in admitting evidence. This is why it is always a bad idea to proceed with serious claims unrepresented. Even if th claims are exceedingly strong, it is virtually certain you will fail to properly admit evidence and almost certainly would recover nothing. People who think proceeding pro se will net them a higher judgment, since they won't have to pay attorneys' fees, instead almost never recover anything. This is precisely why the defendant in your case refused to settle the case -- they knew it would be close to impossible for you to succeed at trial.

For these reasons, proceeding pro se probably never saves you any money, and probably always results in the total loss of the value of your claims, regardelss of the strength of the on the merits. Its simply too difficult for a non lawyer to know how to properly admit evidence and otherwise successfully navigate trial practice. In my opinion, proceeding pro se is always a very bad mistake. I'm sorry you appear to be learning this hard lesson now.

Re: emotional distress

As to the specifics of your question, you might consider trying the following (which DOES NOT constitute legal advice, nor give rise to any form of attorney-client relationship.)

IF your wife testified to her own emotional distress and, importantly, to any PHYSICAL effects she claims were caused by the distress, then consider asking the judge, but OUT OF THE HEARING OF THE JURY and BEFORE making a closing, if you can argue for the jury to put a monetary value on the distress and resulting physical symptoms, BASED ON your wife's trial testimony as to that evidence. (NOT based on the excluded medicals).

Do NOT mention the excluded evidence in your closing, and be careful to keep your closing very closely tailored to the actual trial testimony on this (if any), and any reasonable inferences drawn FROM the TESTIMONY or ADMITTED evidence. While the other side will clearly impeach wife's testimony as biased, self-interested otherwise unsupported evidence as to the purported "distress," -- which they will claim the jury should simply disregard as such -- proceeding as suggested here (if warranted on the evidence) might be better than nothing at all in your closing as to ED damages.

If you have any similar questions or concerns about what you can/can't say in your closing, be SURE to tell the judge you'd like to discuss those things BEFORE the jury comes down (or ask for a sidebar if jury is already empanelled). Make sure any such issues are resolved with the judge out of the jury's earshot and BEFORE you proceed with your closing.

Good luck.