Comments on: Coaching medical witnesses

By: Ilya

Ilya — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:37:34 +0000

I understand that in many cases only one side is guilty of lies/exaggeration/omission.

But jury will not be able to tell a liar from non-liar! It’s pretty much a coin-toss as far as jury is concerned.

My main point was that it seems that if experts were selected by the court or randomly drawn from a pool, then jury would have a MUCH greater chance to hear a real expert opinion.

By: JJ

JJ — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 12:34:47 +0000

There should be a certification process for medical expert witnesses on both sides. The state should maintain a panel of experts from which all experts need to be chosen. In order to get and stay on the panel, the experts should be required to adhere to certain standards. These would include not only accuracy in testimony and areas of expertise, but also standards for charges. The panel should be jointly monitored and policed by attorneys and doctors. Penalty for giving misleading or false testimony would be expulsion from the panel. Experts in all medical malpractice, workers comp, motor vehicle accident, disability, etc cases would have to come from the panel.

What do you think?

By: Anonymous Attorney

Anonymous Attorney — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 11:17:06 +0000

What Eric Turkewitz naturally leaves out is the message that plaintiff-side doctors receive, however subliminally, and testify back:

Every plaintiff is totally, catastrophically and permanently injured, forever and ever, and any conceivable injury or condition they’ve got was caused, no matter how improbably, by the fender-bender in ’03. Period.

I mean really. Plaintiff lawyers know with a wink and a nod which doctors will say that, probably without ever having seen the plaintiff. They will always say the plaintiff is injured. They will always, even sans reasoning, link the condition to the accident. High blood pressure caused by a trip and fall? Why, sure. Bulging disc in a 62-year-old man that showed up crystal-clear on an MRI the day before the car accident? Why, then, it was AGGRAVATED by the accident! They will ALWAYS need surgery to relieve their spinal pressure. They will always need a knee replacement. They will always have a permanent injury. The concept of “healing” completely disappears from the medical physics in the plaintiff world. Nobody ever gets better. Everything always gets worse. Been in 9 car accidents besides the 10th you’re suing about, with 3 before and 6 after? Well, Dr. Plaintiff Testimony can supremely divine that it was that 10th accident, the one with the insured driver, that somehow is causing the back condition.

And on, and on. Yes, I’m sure there are defense-side shenanigans, but I bet it’s nothing compared to what goes on with plaintiffs.

By: William Nuesslein

William Nuesslein — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:38:53 +0000

ilya,

Part of the hard wiring of human beings is to assign even odds to differences. With respect to “both sides will exaggerate their claims to the max” plese look at the Phil Spector trial in California and at the boot camp trial in Florida. In both cases the exaggerations were all one sided. There never was any evidence that breast implants were dangerous, so all cases were one sided exaggerations. The Daubert test was generated to a large extent by exaggerations that were borderline fraud.

By: ilya

ilya — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 01:23:20 +0000

And I think this is the most fundamental problem with adversarial justice system: both sides will exaggerate their claim to the max.

How can a jury (or even a judge) make a reasonable decision when they are faced with two “experts” making contradicting statements? One of them is lying, but which one? (to make things worse jurors are not supposed to do their own research so even most intelligent juror who has no 1st hand expertise in the area will NOT be able to make a reasonable decision).

I think the system would be much better (as in fairer/lower cost/faster) if experts were appointed by a judge (or randomly drawn from a pool).