Opinion ID: 2575425
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Did the district court abuse its discretion by excluding the testimony of Dr. Rotschafer and Dr. Hollander?

Text: The Edmunds argue the district court erred by excluding the testimony of Dr. Rotschafer and by striking the second affidavit of Dr. Hollander. They contend the court should have allowed them to supplement their discovery responses to include Dr. Rotschafer under rule 26(e), Idaho Rules of Civil Procedure, and should not have prevented them from calling Dr. Rotschafer as a rebuttal witness. The Edmunds also assert that Dr. Hollander did not need to meet the requirements of Idaho Code §§ 6-1012 and 6-1013 until his opinion was offered in opposition to St. Alphonsus's motion for summary judgment and that I.R.C.P. 26(e) allows for supplementation of expert witness opinions, so there was nothing wrong with Dr. Hollander's second affidavit. Conversely, St. Alphonsus argues that evidentiary decisions are left to the sound discretion of the trial court, and the lower court did not abuse its discretion when excluding Dr. Rothschafer's testimony and striking Dr. Hollander's second affidavit. Before analyzing the decisions to exclude expert testimony and the decision to grant summary judgment to St. Alphonsus, it is important to understand more clearly the underlying facts of the case and the way in which discovery proceeded. St. Alphonsus is being sued for the care its pharmacists provided in determining the initial dosage of Gentamicin James received and its subsequent monitoring, not for the care provided by the physician-defendants. Dr. Hollander was disclosed as an expert witness prior to the district court's deadline. Later, in support of the Edmunds motion for summary judgment, Dr. Hollander's opinion was reduced to affidavit form. It stated the he had become familiar with the local standard of care for all health care providers. Additionally, this first affidavit analyzed St. Alphonsus's breach using a multiple-daily dosing regime for Gentamicin as the local standard. These opinions were disclosed prior to any disclosure by St. Alphonsus. After these disclosures, St. Alphonsus disclosed the names of three expert witnesses. A month later, in response to interrogatories by the Edmunds, St. Alphonsus provided the facts and opinions of these experts. Three days after receiving St. Alphonsus's responses outlining its experts' opinions, the Edmunds disclosed Dr. Rotschafer as an expert witness, but did not provide his opinion at that point. Then, more than two months after St. Alphonsus's initial expert witness disclosure and in opposition to the Edmunds motion for summary judgment, St. Alphonsus filed two expert witness affidavits. Each of these affidavits states that Drs. Hollander and Dajani did not acknowledge that the single-daily dosing regime for Gentamicin is the local standard of care. Presumably in response to these affidavits and St. Alphonsus's expert witness disclosures, the Edmunds attempted to utilize Dr. Rotschafer as an expert and also filed supplemental opinions for Drs. Hollander and Dajani opining that St. Alphonsus breached the local standard of care for the single-daily dosing regime. Likewise, the disclosure of Dr. Rotschafer's opinion, slightly more than one month after St. Alphonsus filed its expert witness affidavits, deals with the single-daily dosing regime. It is these opinions surrounding the local standard of care that are at issue. A trial court has authority to sanction parties for non-compliance with pretrial orders, and sanctions may include those enumerated in I.R.C.P. 37(b)(2)(B), (C) and (D) for discovery violations. I.R.C.P. 16(i). The imposition of such sanctions is committed to the discretion of the trial court, and we will not overturn such a decision absent a manifest abuse of that discretion. S. Idaho Prod. Credit Ass'n. v. Astorquia, 113 Idaho 526, 528, 746 P.2d 985, 987 (1987). When determining whether a district court abused its discretion, this Court considers three factors: (1) whether the trial court correctly perceived the issue as one of discretion, (2) whether it acted within the boundaries of its discretion and consistently with applicable legal principles, and (3) whether it reached its decision through an exercise of reason. Lamar Corp. v. City of Twin Falls, 133 Idaho 36, 40, 981 P.2d 1146, 1150 (1999).
After the pretrial order deadlines for disclosing the names of expert witnesses had passed and after St. Alphonsus disclosed its expert witnesses and their preliminary opinions, the Edmunds sought to allow Dr. Rotschafer as an expert witness. St. Alphonsus opposed the Edmunds' motion to supplement and requested sanctions pursuant to I.R.C.P. 16(i) and 37(b)(2)(B). The district court determined that Dr. Rotschafer would not be allowed to testify, even as a rebuttal witness. Here, the district court did not abuse its discretion by excluding Dr. Rotschafer's testimony. The trial court recognized its discretion, used reason, and acted within the boundaries of applicable legal principles. First, the hearing transcript makes clear that the district court understood it had discretion in ruling on this motion. The lower court reasoned that the Edmunds had failed to demonstrate an acceptable reason to extend the discovery deadlines previously imposed by the court and concluded that in order for the parties to be ready for mediation and trial Dr. Rotschafer's testimony should not be allowed. We affirm the district court's decision excluding Dr. Rotschafer's testimony. Though we affirm the district court's order regarding Dr. Rotschafer's testimony, we believe it appropriate to comment on the practice of issuing discovery orders that fail to allow plaintiffs to add witnesses in response to defendants' witness disclosures. The purpose of our discovery rules is to facilitate fair and expedient pretrial fact gathering. It follows, therefore, that discovery rules are not intended to encourage or reward those whose conduct is inconsistent with that purpose. Discovery orders of the kind in this case, however, give defendants every incentive to withhold information until after the plaintiff's disclosure deadline has passed. Our Court of Appeals rightly observed that these orders reward the defendant for stonewalling. Priest v. Landon, 135 Idaho 898, 901, 26 P.3d 1235, 1238 (Ct. App.2001). We are of course mindful that the Rules of Civil Procedure equip both sides with tools to ensure fair pretrial procedure, see I.R.C.P. 16, 26, and we have little sympathy for attorneys who do not utilize these tools to the extent reasonable. But we do not look favorably upon discretionary decisions by district judges that encourage last-minute witness disclosure and unreasonably prevent plaintiffs from responding, particularly in complex medical malpractice cases where experts will be furnishing the jury with the bulk of the necessary, and often technical, facts.
Prior to deciding St. Alphonsus's motion for summary judgment, the district court, upon St. Alphonsus's motion, struck the supplemental affidavit of Dr. Hollander. After determining that the affidavit of Dr. Dajani did not contain adequate foundation as to the local standard of care, the district court examined Dr. Hollander's two affidavits. The court found that the first affidavit, which was timely filed under the pre-trial order, did not address the standard of care for pharmacists. Turning to Dr. Hollander's second affidavit, the lower court noted that it was not filed until almost a year after the discovery deadline for the naming of expert witnesses, two months before trial, and determined that because it contained opinions based on the single-daily dosing regime as the local standard of care and opinions regarding pharmacists' standard of care that were not contained in his first affidavit, the issue of admissibility turned on whether it was filed too late. The court then struck the affidavit as being untimely under its discovery order and I.R.C.P. 26. As a threshold matter, to be admissible in a medical malpractice action, expert testimony must demonstrate the expert's familiarity with the applicable standard of care for a particular profession for the relevant community and time, and the proponent must show the basis for the expert's knowledge. Perry v. Magic Valley Reg'l Med. Ctr., 134 Idaho 46, 51, 995 P.2d 816, 821 (2000). Idaho Code §§ 6-1012 and 6-1013 impose requirements on an expert's testimony in a medical malpractice case. Idaho Code § 6-1012 requires a plaintiff to affirmatively prove by direct expert testimony that the health care provider negligently failed to meet the community standard of health care, as it existed at the time and place of the alleged negligent act. Idaho Code § 6-1013 requires that the expert must show that he or she actually holds the opinion, that it is held with a reasonable degree of medical certainty, and that he or she is not only an expert but has actual knowledge of the applicable community standard. Kolln, 130 Idaho at 329, 940 P.2d at 1148. However, the district court did not base its decision to strike Dr. Hollander's second affidavit on a failure to lay an adequate foundation as required by these sections. Instead, the decision was based on the timeliness of the disclosure of the opinions set forth in the affidavit and based on a pretrial order that only ordered the disclosure of the names of expert witnesses. The district court believed that its very brief order governing the timing of expert witness disclosure somehow superseded the statutes and rules surrounding such disclosures in medical malpractice cases. This belief was incorrect. As a result, the lower court's actions were outside the boundaries of applicable legal principles and an abuse of discretion. First, the order governing expert witness disclosure simply stated: Plaintiff's experts to be disclosed by April 14, 2003. There was no indication that this disclosure must contain any information relating to the local standard of care. It simply required that the names of the Edmunds' experts be disclosed by a certain date. Second, Idaho law specifically contemplates that expert testimony can change after the initial disclosure. Idaho Rule of Civil Procedure 26(e)(1)(B) requires that litigants supplement discovery responses as to the identity of each person expected to be called as an expert witness at trial, the subject matter on which the person is expected to testify, and the substance of the person's testimony. This Court has held that this rule unambiguously imposes a continuing duty to supplement responses to discovery with respect to the substance and subject matter of an expert's testimony where the initial responses have been rejected, modified, expanded upon or otherwise altered in some manner. Clark v. Klein, 137 Idaho 154, 157, 45 P.3d 810, 813 (2002) (quoting Radmer v. Ford Motor Co., 120 Idaho 86, 813 P.2d 897 (1991)) (emphasis added). In fact, litigants are subject to sanctions, including the exclusion of expert testimony, when they have failed to supplement an expert's opinion. See, e.g., Radmer, 120 Idaho at 91, 813 P.2d at 902. Third, it does not change the above analysis that the opinion contained in Dr. Hollander's second affidavit is virtually identical to the opinion of Dr. Rotschafer. St. Alphonsus makes much of this fact, arguing that this affidavit was nothing but the Edmunds' attempt to circumvent the trial court's earlier decision excluding Dr. Rotschafer's untimely opinions. However, because the change in Dr. Hollander's opinion affects only his credibility, it should not be addressed by a trial judge at summary judgment, see Stanley v. Lennox Indus., Inc., 140 Idaho 785, 788-89, 102 P.3d 1104, 1107-08 (2004), and cannot serve as the basis for striking his affidavit. Likewise, any similarity between Dr. Rotschafer's and Dr. Hollander's opinion cannot serve as the basis for striking Dr. Hollander's testimony because Dr. Rotschafer's testimony was excluded based on procedure, not on the substance of his testimony. Nothing in Idaho law prevents experts from consulting each other or from holding the same opinion. Additionally, the Edmunds supplemented Dr. Hollander's initial opinion in October, 2003. This supplement meets the requirements of I.R.C.P. 26(e)(1)(B) and coming eight months before trial is a seasonable supplementation of Dr. Hollander's opinion. The drafters of Rule 26 noted that seasonably was very imprecise and left considerable discretion to the trial judge. Hopkins v. Duo-Fast Corp., 123 Idaho 205, 213, 846 P.2d 207, 215 (1993) (Bakes, C.J., concurring). This Court has not yet announced a more precise definition of seasonably. However, as Justice Bakes noted in Hopkins: an important inquiry in determining whether a response was given `seasonably' is: was the opposing party given an opportunity for full cross examination? If `yes,' then there probably would be no abuse of discretion in admitting the testimony. 123 Idaho at 213, 846 P.2d at 215 (Bakes, C.J. concurring) (citing Radmer v. Ford Motor Co., 120 Idaho 86, 813 P.2d 897 (1991)). St. Alphonsus was afforded a full opportunity not only to cross-examine Dr. Hollander as to these newly expressed opinions because the supplementation was eight months prior to trial, but also to undertake additional discovery at no or very little additional cost as they had not yet deposed Dr. Hollander. Therefore, the supplementation of Dr. Hollander's opinion was seasonable. Here, the trial court's decision essentially added the requirements of I.C. §§ 6-1012 and 6-1013 to his pretrial order, which did not give the Edmunds notice that they would be held to this standard in their initial disclosures, and ignored that Idaho law and rules of civil procedure contemplate that expert opinions can change and develop during the course of litigation. The pretrial order and subsequent decision also denied the Edmunds an opportunity to respond to or rebut St. Alphonsus's evidence. Moreover, this decision was based on an incorrect understanding of discovery procedure. While a court may properly order parties to disclose expert witnesses by a deadline, a brief order dictating the date of disclosing only the names of expert witnesses cannot trump the requirement of I.R.C.P. 26(e)(1)(B) that parties seasonably supplement their discovery responses as new information is learned or expert opinions change. This does not mean a trial judge cannot issue a more detailed pretrial order for orderly discovery in complicated cases that would further clarify the general rules of discovery. Dr. Hollander's supplementation of his opinion was reasonable under I.R.C.P. 26(e)(i)(B) and the Court holds that the decision to strike Dr. Hollander's supplemental affidavit was an abuse of discretion. By so holding, we are not sanctioning either party's conduct. It certainly appears that counsel for each side engaged in strategies inconsistent with the spirit of our discovery rules. Our pretrial procedure rules have certainly created a more active and managerial role for the judge in the adjudication process. See I.R.C.P. 16, 26; see also Judith Resnick, Managerial Judges, 96 Harv. L.Rev. 374, 378-79 (1982) (noting that federal pretrial procedure rules have increased the judicial role in managing pretrial phases of cases, calling on them to be mediators, negotiators and planners, as well as adjudicators). However, much of the responsibility for the orderly movement of a case to conclusion lies first with the attorneys themselves. Yet, courts also must maintain order in this process when their leadership is necessary. It is clear under our rules that courts must remain disinterested, but may not proceed disconnected from the case. We expect trial courts to actively manage discovery through the use of appropriate pretrial orders and pretrial conferences.