Opinion ID: 1302539
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Evidentiary Rulings Constituting Reversible Error,

Text: Plaintiffs raise two issues with respect to Defendants' cross-examination of Plaintiffs' endocrinologist expert Dr. Terry Davies, in the first bellwether trial. The first issue concerns the district court's ruling that Dr. Davies could not testify that he authored articles on I-131's effect on thyroid cells. The second issue is Defendants' cross-examination of Dr. Davies with deposition testimony of a non-testifying expert. These errors surrounding Dr. Davies' testimony, taken together, were prejudicial to Plaintiffs' case. We therefore must remand for a new trial. With respect to Dr. Davies' prelitigation scholarship, the district court barred Plaintiffs from asking him whether he has published any peer reviewed articles or papers regarding the capacity of 131 to kill or damage thyroid cells. The record reveals that the district court believed Dr. Davies could not testify about any pre-litigation articles on this subject, because Dr. Davies had not written, any peer-reviewed scientific article concluding that doses at less than 100 rads can cause autoimmune disease. This ruling was an abuse of discretion, because it deprived the jury of testimony from Dr. Davies about the extent of his pre-litigation expertise regarding causes of thyroid illness. That Dr. Davies had not written any articles specifically directed to causation below 100 rads does not mean Dr. Davies' work on causation generally was inadmissible. Plaintiffs' key witness on causation extensively researched and authored scholarship on the capacity of 1-131 emissions to kill thyroid cells, and the jury was entitled to know the reach of his expertise. Standing alone, this error might not be prejudicial; there is, however, a more serious problem with the presentation of Dr. Davies' testimony. Defendants were allowed to impeach one of Plaintiffs' key expert witnesses with inadmissible evidence, hearsay statements that Defendants themselves successfully excluded from Plaintiffs' case-in-chief. Prior to trial, Plaintiffs proffered the deposition testimony of epidemiologist Dr. A. James Ruttenber. According to Plaintiffs, Dr. Ruttenber would have testified that although current epidemiological studies prove only that radiation above 40 rads can cause thyroid disease, those studies do not preclude causation at lower dosages. On Defendants' motion, the district court excluded this testimony, finding it was too speculative. Having learned that the most probative part of Dr. Ruttenber's testimony was no longer admissible, Plaintiffs chose not to call him to the stand. Plaintiffs, instead, called Dr. Davies to testify that low dosages of radiation could cause thyroid disease. Dr. Davies had relied on some of Dr. Ruttenber's dosage estimates in preparing his pretrial expert report, but he never read nor relied on Dr. Ruttenber's deposition in rendering his expert opinion. Even though Dr. Ruttenber's causation testimony has been ruled inadmissible prior to trial, defense counsel on cross-examination used Dr. Ruttenber's deposition to impeach Dr. Davies' testimony. Among many other questions, defense counsel asked the following regarding Dr. Ruttenber's deposition: Q: And doctor, are you aware that Doctor Ruttenber has said that the epidemiological literature can only show an increased risk of autoimmune thyroiditis down to 40 rads?. . . . Q: Did Doctor Ruttenber ever identify to you any epidemiological studies that reported that doses at 10 rad increased the risk of autoimmune thyroid disease? . . . Q: Yeah, and page 75 at the bottom, lines 23 to 25, Doctor Ruttenber, is it your testimony that the epidemiology gets you down to increased risk of autoimmune thyroiditis at point 4 gray? . . . [] now, were you aware that Doctor Ruttenber had taken that position? Plaintiffs made continuing objections to this cross-examination, but the district court permitted the questions. Dr. Ruttenber's statements should not have been used to impeach Dr. Davies because they were inadmissible hearsay on which Dr. Davies did not rely. We agree with the Fifth Circuit that reports of other experts cannot be admitted even as impeachment evidence unless the testifying expert based his opinion on the hearsay in the examined report or testified directly from the report. Bryan v. John Bean, 566 F.2d 541, 546-47 (5th Cir.1978) (citing Box v. Swindle, 306 F.2d 882 (5th Cir.1962)); see also United States v. Lay ton, 549 F.Supp. 903, 920-21 (N.D.Cal.1982). Because Dr. Davies did not rely on Dr. Ruttenber's deposition, and because the trial court had excluded the deposition testimony as inadmissible hearsay, Defendants should not have been allowed to use the testimony to impeach Dr. Davies' credibility. Defendants urge us to find that the error is harmless. Defendants, however, overlook their own emphasis on the significance of Dr. pavies' testimony and his credibility to the jury. Defendants read a large portion of Dr. Davies' cross-examination back to the jury in closing arguments, highlighting how Dr. Ruttenber's deposition testimony rendered Dr. Davies' testimony not credible. They then stated: [I]f you have Ruttenber saying 40 rads as of today, based on his review of radiation epidemiology, how does Davies get away with saying at 10 rads their dose; we say it's closer to 6. How does Davies get away with offering an opinion on causation? It's just not credible. Dr. Davies was the key witness on causation and Defendants' strategy was to cast doubt on his opinion. They did just that by improperly using Dr. Ruttenber's deposition. The prejudice to Plaintiffs was exacerbated by the court's ruling that Plaintiffs were unable to rehabilitate Dr. Davies' credibility with evidence of his prelitigation, peer-reviewed articles on causation. Dr. Davies' endocrinologist testimony on causation was particularly probative, because Plaintiffs already had lost the key expert's epidemiological testimony, Dr. Ruttenber's opinion, regarding causation. We thus have no choice but to reverse the verdicts against Plaintiffs Goldbloom, Carlisle, and Buckner and remand for a new trial.
There is an additional ground for reversal with respect to Plaintiff Goldbloom. The district court erred when it instructed the jury to disregard Dr. Peters' expert testimony that Goldbloom's thyroid contained Hurthle cells, which are indicative of some kind of injury to the thyroid. Although Dr. Peters' pretrial expert report contained no evidence regarding the presence of Hurthle cells in Goldbloom's thyroid, defense counsel did not object to the testimony at trial. Partway through deliberations, the jury astutely asked whether it could consider Dr. Peters' testimony even though evidence regarding Hurthle cells was not in the expert report. The district court held a conference with the parties to discuss the jury's question. Plaintiffs argued that the jury should be able to consider the Hurthle cell evidence, because Defendants did not object to its admission at trial. Defendants argued that the court should instruct the jury to disregard the evidence, because it was not contained in Dr. Peters' pretrial report. The district court agreed with Defendants and instructed the jury to disregard the Hurthle cell testimony. This ruling was erroneous. It is a rare circumstance when the court may exclude evidence after the close of the parties' cases. Jerden v. Amstutz, 430 F.3d 1231, 1236-37 (9th Cir.2005), amended on other grounds, 2006 WL 60668, 2006 U.S.App. LEXIS 673 (9th Cir. Jan. 12, 2006). The reasons for such caution are clear. If the parties have already rested, they no longer have a chance to provide a curative response to the excluded evidence. Id. at 1237. They also do not have a chance to present the testimony in another fashion, such as calling an additional witness. Id. (citing Bartleson v. United States, 96 F.3d 1270, 1278 (9th Cir.1996)). And most pertinent to this case, it is impossible to erase from the jury's minds any arguments that were made during closing summation about the belatedly-excluded evidence. In this case, not only did Defendants fail to object to the Hurthle cell evidence, they used the evidence themselves, pointing to the testimony during closing summation as evidence that Dr. Peters was not a reliable witness. Defendants should not have been allowed to reap the benefit of a tardy exclusion of Plaintiffs evidence after they used the same evidence in their closing argument as a basis for impeachment. The error in excluding the evidence was prejudicial. Plaintiff Goldbloom did not have an opportunity to remedy the error, because the evidence was not excluded until after the parties had rested. Her only remedy was to seek a mistrial. The error in excluding the Hurthle cell evidence, when coupled with the errors above, thus warrants a new trial.