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One for the Home Team: Supreme Court Upholds Expert Witness Definition
July 19,2007
A landmark court decision forbade a podiatrist from testifying as an expert against an orthopaedic surgeon, even when the alleged negligence occurred prior to May 20, 2002, the effective date of Act 13, 2002. Last month, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court narrowly upheld a provision from Act 13 which defined the use of expert witness in medical liability trials.
"While it's clear to people like you and me that a podiatrist is not a physician and the state law says that only physicians can testify as expert witnesses against other physicians, this is another example of how the provisions enacted five years ago continue to wind their way through our state's court system before becoming fully implemented," said 3PSC President Barbara Frieman, MD, cautioning that victory and defeat were separated by only one vote.
On June 5, in a narrow, 4-3 decision, in the case of Wexler v. Hecht, the Supreme Court upheld the Superior Court's 2003 decision which affirmed a trial court which refused to permit a podiatrist to testify against an orthopedic surgeon on the grounds that S. 512 of the MCARE Act requires an expert testifying on the standard of care to possess an "unrestricted physician's license."
"This is an important decision for clarifying the expert witness provisions of the law so that plaintiffs can not use the testimony of podiatrists and other non-physicians as expert witnesses in trial," Frieman said. "This is good news for all physicians."