Opinion ID: 2054618
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Cross-Examination of Defense Expert Witness

Text: The plaintiffs' first claim of error concerns a question posed during cross-examination to Dr. Cashore, a defense expert witness, who had testified on direct examination that there was no injury to Michael Anthony in the one-and-one-half hours prior to his delivery. He explained that Michael Anthony's recorded oxygen levels during the second stage of labor and at birth were normal. Although he did believe that some type of hypoxic event occurred that disrupted the oxygen supply to Michael Anthony's brain, he said that such an event did not occur in the last ninety minutes before delivery and that there was no indication that Michael Anthony's oxygen level had decreased to an extent that brain injury could have occurred dur ing labor. He also stated that the event causing Michael Anthony's brain damage could not be precisely determined. Upon further direct examination, Dr. Cashore was questioned concerning a conversation he had with Dr. Gascon, a neurologist who also treated Michael Anthony after his delivery. [3] Neither party, it should be noted, elected to call Dr. Gascon to testify although Dr. Gascon was available to be called. Dr. Cashore was permitted to testify, after the plaintiffs withdrew their00585B objection to his testifying, about an out-of-court conversation that he had engaged in with Dr. Gascon, and in which during this conversation, Dr. Gascon had said to him that the child's injury could have occurred at any time. On cross-examination, the plaintiffs' counsel attempted to impeach Dr. Cashore's version of what Dr. Gascon had told him with Dr. Cashore's pretrial deposition, in which he had said that Dr. Gascon told him that the child's injury could have occurred at any time in the later part of the pregnancy, particularly around the time of the beginning of labor through the time of delivery. The full text of Dr. Cashore's deposition statement concerning this matter follows: Dr. Gascon described for the family the nature of the baby's neurological difficulties in somewhat more detail than I was, and related the neurological problems to the findings on the MRI. I don't recall if anyone asked him directly when or how this happened. I do recall that he had some speculation that this could have occurred at just about any time in the later part of pregnancy, particularly sometime around the time of onset of labor up to the time of delivery, that various scenarios were possible. I'm reconstructing that recollection, but I do believe that that was discussed in those terms. (Emphasis added.) From the above statement, in light of a defense objection, the trial justice refused to allow the clause particularly sometime around the time of onset of labor up to the time of delivery to be read to the jury. The trial justice stated because inadmissible evidence might have come in without objection during direct examination, equally inadmissible [evidence] can't come in during cross. [4] The trial justice, we conclude, correctly determined that Dr. Cashore's complete deposition answer was inadmissible. Dr. Gascon's out-of-court statement was pure hearsay to which no exception applied. The plaintiffs erroneously suggest, however, that the statement should have been construed as non-hearsay because it was an adoptive admission of a party opponent, relying upon our opinion in State v. Lerner, 112 R.I. 62, 308 A.2d 324 (1973), a criminal case interpreting what constitutes an adoptive admission. [5] In Lerner, we held that in order to determine when silence constitutes an adoptive admission, a trial justice should consider whether the statement preceding a person's silence was incriminating or accusatory; whether it was a statement to which an innocent person in the defendant's situation would reply; whether it was made in the presence and hearing of the defendant; whether the defendant understood the statement's meaning; and whether the defendant had the opportunity to deny or reply to the statement. Id. at 84; 308 A.2d at 338. Dr. Gascon, who was not an employee of the hospital, never made an accusatory or incriminating statement, but rather he simply speculated about a broad time range in which the brain damage to Michael Anthony might have occurred. There was no reason for Dr. Cashore to disagree with that speculative statement that was uncritical of the care rendered to Donna and Michael Anthony. Dr. Gascon's statement was not a statement offered against the hospital and was not critical of the hospital's reputation. Further, it did not contradict the testimony of the various defense expert witnesses, who all determined that Michael Anthony's brain damage occurred at least twelve to twenty-four hours before his birth. Additionally, Dr. Cashore had no reason to question Dr. Gascon's statement because he believed in the essential premise that the injury could have occurred at any time late in the pregnancy. The plaintiffs appear to have utterly failed to meet their burden under the Lerner test to show that the statement in question should have been construed as an adoptive admission of a party opponent. The plaintiffs next contend that Dr. Gascon's out-of-court statement represented his expert medical opinion. However, Dr. Cashore testified that he recalled that Dr. Gascon had some speculation and that various scenarios were possible and points to the fact that Dr. Gascon did not hold to any definite opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty about the timing of Michael Anthony's injury to have been considered admissible as an expert opinion. The trial justice, we conclude, appropriately refused in light of Rule 702 of the Rhode Island Rules of Evidence [6] to admit this speculative opinion testimony, over the defendants' objection. Given that none of the medical expert witnesses who testified at trial were able to pinpoint the precise time of Michael Anthony's in utero injury, it seems absurd to conjecture that had the jury been permitted to hear the entirety of Dr. Gascon's speculative out-of-court statement made to Dr. Cashore, it would have found a causal link between any negligence on the part of Dr. Bowling and the onset of Michael Anthony's injury. We note also that the trial justice offered plaintiffs' counsel the option to strike the phrase could have occurred at any time, but counsel refused to have it stricken. Plaintiffs' counsel also made no attempt to present Dr. Gascon, either in the plaintiffs' case-in-chief or as a rebuttal witness. The trial justice, after learning that Dr. Gascon was in Rhode Island and was available to testify, offered the plaintiffs the opportunity to bring him in as a rebuttal witness, but plaintiffs' counsel declined to do so. The plaintiffs finally erroneously urge upon us that Rule 106 of the Rhode Island Rules of Evidence required the trial justice to permit the plaintiffs to introduce portions of Dr. Cashore's deposition testimony concerning Dr. Gascon's speculative statement as to the onset of Michael Anthony's in utero injury. Rule 106 provides: When a writing or recorded statement or part thereof is introduced by a party, an adverse party may require him or her at that time to introduce any other part or any other writing or recorded statement which ought in fairness to be considered contemporaneously with it. We need only point out that the defendants never introduced the deposition of Dr. Cashore into evidence. See, e.g., State v. Gasparico, 694 A.2d 1204, 1209-10 (R.I.1997).