Opinion ID: 794464
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Pre-Trial Activities

Text: 9 Henderson, along with two co-plaintiffs, Helen Jones and Janice Grant, filed suit against Dr. Salem and George Washington University on February 1, 2002. Jones and Grant were also former patients of Dr. Salem's, undergoing their own Roux-en-Y surgeries on April 28, 1998 and February 3, 1999, respectively. The three plaintiffs together alleged that Dr. Salem used improper surgical techniques, resulting in stomach pouches and anastomoses that were too large to permit them to achieve their desired weight loss. 10 In response to the complaint, appellees filed, inter alia, a motion to sever the three charges. On January 19, 2004, the District Court found that, [a]lthough each trial will involve some overlap of expert testimony, the facts and circumstances of each plaintiff's claim vary so substantially that the requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20 — governing permissive joinder of parties — were not met. Grant v. Salem, CA No. 02-181, Mem. Op. at 2 (D.D.C. Jan. 19, 2004), Joint Appendix (J.A.) 45. Thus, the court ruled that the three claims in this case are misjoined and shall be severed going forward. Id. 11 By the time the motion to sever was decided, Dr. Salem had already been deposed. The parties anticipated the court's severance ruling, however, and thus agreed to segregate the deposition questions to the circumstances of each plaintiff wherever possible. Nevertheless, one overlapping line of questioning involved a post-surgery report prepared by Dr. Paul Steinwald, the surgical resident who worked with Dr. Salem on the Helen Jones surgery (Jones Report). The Jones Report stated, inter alia, that Dr. Salem had created a three-centimeter anastomosis during the surgery — a size that, if measured internally, is generally considered to violate the standard of care. During his deposition, Dr. Salem conceded that he consistent[ly] made anastomoses the same size during each surgery. Salem Dep. at 39, J.A. 376. He acknowledged that the three-centimeter characterization in the Jones Report was accurate, although he qualified his answer by suggesting that the report described the external anastomosis measurement; Dr. Salem speculated that the internal measurement was likely between a centimeter or more. Id. at 46, J.A. 383.