Opinion ID: 1137798
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of Expert Testimony Based upon Learned Treatise

Text: Defendant next argues that the trial court improperly allowed a physician to base his testimony upon excerpts from a medical treatise. In the instant case, Dr. Pelat, a family practitioner, supported parts of his testimony by citing a medical treatise entitled Hollander's Arthritis and Allied Conditions. [2] Admittedly, the treatise was never offered or introduced into evidence. Defendant argues that unless a medical treatise is introduced into evidence it cannot be the basis for an expert physician's testimony. Alabama has a liberal learned treatise exception to the hearsay rule in that such treatises may actually be admitted into evidence during direct examination. See C. Gamble, McElroy's Alabama Evidence § 248.01 (3d ed. 1977). Defendant seems to argue that because Alabama goes further than most jurisdictions and allows the actual introduction into evidence of a learned treatise, the use of such treatises to any lesser degree, namely, as a foundation of the expert's testimony, is precluded. We fail to see the logic of, or the necessity for, such a rule. It was the doctor's expert opinion and not the learned treatise that was proffered into evidence. Whether or not the treatise is introduced, the defendant still has the option and protection of using the treatise on cross-examination to impeach or discredit the expert's testimony. [3] Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Nichols, 393 So.2d 966, 968 (Ala.1981). If he deems it tactically advantageous, the defendant may even introduce on cross-examination a treatise relied on by an expert and attempt to impeach or discredit its authoritativeness. With these protective options available to the Defendant, we do not see how he was in any way prejudiced by the nonintroduction of the learned treatise. He neither gained nor lost anything by his opponent's decision to use the treatise but not introduce it. Therefore, we find that, under the circumstances, the trial court did not commit reversible error by permitting the use of a nonintroduced learned treatise by an expert.