| Venue: | RI SC |
| Facts: | Complications at the site of an epesiotomy. Ouch. Sheely files suit against Dr. Ryder and the hospital. |
| Posture: | Directed verdict for the defendant at trial (because state statute prohibits testimony by the plaintiff's expert). Appeal by plaintiff. |
| Issue: | Did the trial judge err in excluding the testimony of the plaintiff's expert? |
| Holding: | Yes. Reversed. |
| Rule: | The resources available to a physician, his or her specific area of practice, or the length of time he or she has been practicing are all issues that should be considered by the trial justice in making his or her decision regarding the qualification of an expert. No one issue should be determinative. |
| Reasoning: | The statute requires that an expert (this guy was an OB/GYN) be in
the same field as the doctor who was testifying (in this case,
a family practitioner).
Expert testimony is essential in medical malpractice cases. The argument that this expert is, essentially, overqualified is bogus. It's true that he isn't actively practicing, but these procedures haven't changed much since he was, and he's a respected teacher in the field. Judges need the ability to decide whether a witness may testify, and taking this out of their hands leads to overly nit-picky results like this. We also don't want to cultivate a conspiracy of silence among local doctors. (see note 7 on p. 117) This guy was obviously perfectly well qualified to testify, and excluding him was a prejudicial error. |
| Dicta: | We also don't like the "similar locality" rule: it's outdated. Doctors in different localities now have access to the same journals and information-- there's no reason to hold rural doctors to a different standard than urban ones. |