Opinion ID: 1489278
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Dr. Haines

Text: Explaining to the court that Dr. Joe D. Haines, a family care practitioner, was out of the country and not available to testify at trial, Coulter's counsel asked the court to permit him to read into the record pertinent portions of Dr. Haines's deposition testimony. Dr. Haines had testified during his deposition that all of the defendants violated the standard of care by not ordering, or by their delay in ordering, a mammogram. Having read the portions of Dr. Haines's deposition transcript that defendants offered, the court denied Coulter's request. The court observed that Dr. Haines had offered only personal opinion, acknowledged explicitly that he was not able to testify to standard of care, and, when asked about pertinent literature on mammograms, was unable to cite any. [27] Coulter now argues that other wrongfully excluded evidence or the testimony of defendants' experts may have shown that Dr. Haines' opinion was nationally recognized. However, it was Coulter's counsel's duty to lay the necessary foundation for Dr. Haines's testimony to be admitted as standard-of-care testimony. [28] Hill, supra, 933 A.2d at 328. Coulter's counsel failed to lay that foundation, and so the trial court did not err in excluding his testimony. [29]