According to the Opinion, the allegations pertained to the treatment, or lack thereof, relative to a deceased Plaintiff who suffered cardiac arrest.
The Pennsylvania Superior Court overruled the defense verdict based upon a finding, in part, that the trial court had improperly barred the Plaintiffs from cross-examining the Defendants’ expert about an article that the expert had authored which conflicted with his trial testimony.
The Superior Court noted that an expert's authoring of an article and including a reference to the article in his CV constituted an adoption of the information contained in the article by that expert. The appellate court found that it was not credible that an expert would author an article that she or he did not adopt and support.
As such, the preclusion by the trial court of the cross-examination of the Defendant's expert on that article was found to be reversible error as the Superior Court ruled that the jury missed out on important information that might have colored its evaluation of that expert’s credibility.
The Superior otherwise addressed a separate issue of hearsay within hearsay that arose during the course of the trial.
The appellate court noted that it was not an abuse of discretion by the trial court to have excluded a note written by the Plaintiff as inadmissible double hearsay.
The note at issue included a compound statement referred not only to the Plaintiff's state of mind, but also referenced medical instructions.
While the portion of the statement that referenced the Plaintiff's state of mind may have been admissible under Pa.R.E. 803(3)'s hearsay exception related to a declarant's statement of their then-existing state of mind or condition, here, the court noted that compound statements such as the one at issue were not admissible.
Rather, the court noted that, given the existence of hearsay within hearsay, the trial court properly excluded the evidence.
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Source: “Bad Evidentiary Ruling In Med Mal Trial Spurs Pa. Appeals Court To Toss Hospital’s Defense Verdict,” By Aleeza Furman of The Legal Intelligencer (June 4, 2025).
Source: “Bad Evidentiary Ruling In Med Mal Trial Spurs Pa. Appeals Court To Toss Hospital’s Defense Verdict,” By Aleeza Furman of The Legal Intelligencer (June 4, 2025).
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