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Owens v. Silvia12/22/2003
Flanders, Justice. In this medical-malpractice case, the trial justice excluded proffered expert-witness testimony about the asserted liability of various medical professionals and a hospital to a patient who suffered permanent injuries while undergoing a prolonged operation. The trial justice barred the testimony of Dr. Mark D. Johnson (Dr. Johnson), the sole expert witness on liability for the plaintiff, surgical patient Alvin A. Owens, Jr. (plaintiff or Owens). Doctor Johnson was prepared to opine at the trial about the applicable standard of care, the alleged breach of that standard, and what caused plaintiff to suffer permanent injuries to his left arm and sciatic nerve during the unexpectedly prolonged surgery to reconstruct his jaw. After so ruling, the court entered judgment as a matter of law in favor of the defendants, anesthesiologist Gregory Towne, M.D. (Dr. Towne), nurse anesthetist Rebecca Paolino, C.R.N.A. (Nurse Paolino), and Rhode Island Hospital (hospital) (collectively referred to as defendants). The plaintiff appeals from the judgment in favor of the defendants.
Concluding that the trial justice abused his discretion and misapplied the applicable law governing the admission of expert testimony, we reverse and remand for a new trial. On the other hand, we affirm the court's rulings preventing plaintiff from using the depositions of defendants' expert witnesses during plaintiff's case-in-chief and refusing to hold a hearing in limine before deciding whether to allow defendants to introduce evidence that plaintiff assumed the risk of certain injuries when he agreed to the surgery in question.
Facts and Travel
Alleging that the negligence of the operating-room team (OR team) during his extended eleven hours of jaw-reconstruction surgery caused him to suffer serious permanent injuries to his left arm and sciatic nerve, plaintiff sued defendants for medical malpractice. He asserted that, while he was immobilized for approximately twelve hours during what was supposed to be a two-to-four-hour operation, blood flow to the left side of his body was radically diminished for an extended period, causing him to suffer permanent injuries to his left forearm and to his left sciatic nerve, as well as leaving him with lesions on his left buttocks, heels, and forehead.
Before trial, the Superior Court convened a preliminary hearing, pursuant to Rule 104(a) of the Rhode Island Rules of Evidence, to consider the admissibility of the proffered testimony of plaintiff's expert witness on liability. At this hearing, Dr. Johnson, a board-certified anesthesiologist and plaintiff's sole expert witness on defendants' asserted liability, testified outside the presence of the jury to his medical opinions concerning the applicable standard of care in anesthesiology during plaintiff's surgery, defendants' alleged breach thereof, and how this alleged breach caused the injuries in question.
At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial justice denied defendants' motion to exclude the testimony of Dr. Johnson from admission into evidence during the trial, ruling that he would be permitted to testify before the jury.
In deciding that Dr. Johnson would be permitted to testify to his opinions, the trial justice stated that " he jury will be -- should be capable of determining whether or not the testimony introduced by Dr. Johnson is worthy of belief and what weight, if any, they choose to give to the testimony."
Eventually, after several false starts, the trial began some ten months later, and plaintiff presented numerous witnesses. But before he could call Dr. Johnson as an expert witness, Dr. Towne and Nurse Paolino moved the court t
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