Opinion ID: 2108736
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the trial court's failure to perform its gatekeeping role under mre 702

Text: In this case, defendant Oakwood Hospital moved in limine to exclude the testimony of Dr. Ronald Gabriel on the basis that Dr. Gabriel's theory of how plaintiff sustained brain damage was not generally accepted within the medical community, as required by Davis-Frye. Dr. Gabriel's etiological theory, as summarized by defendant in arguing its motion, was that hyperstimulat[ion] of the uterus caused the head of the fetus (plaintiff) to pound against his mother's pelvic anatomy, thereby producing permanent brain damage. This theory, according to defendant, was novel enough to be excluded and, at best, was admissible only once it passed through the crucible of Davis-Frye analysis. In response to this motion, plaintiff's attorney produced several articles and authorities that were meant to demonstrate a link between the use of Pitocin and the type of injury sustained by plaintiff. But while some of these articles described a correlation between the use of Pitocin and generalized brain injury, none of these authorities supported the theory of causation actually put forth by Dr. Gabriel. That is, none supported a causal connection between Pitocin and brain injury incurred through repeated pounding of the fetal head against maternal anatomy. However, the court did not rely on authorities proffered by plaintiff in denying defendant's motion for a Davis-Frye hearing. Instead of consulting plaintiff's proffered scientific and medical literature, the court erroneously assigned the burden of proof under Davis-Frye to defendant  the party op posing the admission of Dr. Gabriel's testimony  and held that defendant was not entitled to a hearing because it failed to prove that Dr. Gabriel's theory lacked general acceptance. [40] When the MRE 702 principles described above are properly applied, it is evident that the trial court abused its discretion in denying defendant's motion for a Davis-Frye hearing. This abuse of discretion was predicated on two fundamental legal errors. First, the trial court erred in concluding that it had no obligation to review plaintiff's proposed expert testimony unless defendant introduced evidence that the expert testimony was novel. Under MRE 702, the trial court had an independent obligation to review all expert opinion testimony in order to ensure that the opinion testimony satisfied the three Beckley preconditions noted above  that it was rendered by a qualified expert, that the testimony would assist the trier of fact, and, under the rules of evidence in effect during this trial, that the opinion testimony was rooted in recognized scientific or technical principles. These obligations applied irrespective of the type of expert opinion testimony offered by the parties. [41] While a party may waive any claim of error by failing to call this gatekeeping obligation to the court's attention, the court must evaluate expert testimony under MRE 702 once that issue is raised. Second, the trial court erred in concluding that there was no justification for a Davis-Frye hearing. At issue was Dr. Gabriel's opinion that Pitocin administered to Ms. Craig produced contractions of excessive duration and force, that these contractions caused plaintiff's head to be repeatedly ground against Ms. Craig's pelvic anatomy, and that the resulting head trauma caused plaintiff's cerebral palsy. This causal sequence, defendant argued, has never been described in medical literature and was at odds with the testimony of plaintiff's other expert witnesses. Plaintiff failed to introduce a single authority that truly supported Dr. Gabriel's theory in response to defendant's motion. Instead, plaintiff repeatedly stressed that medical literature amply supported the proposition that Pitocin could cause brain damage  a proposition defendant did not contest  and supplied the court with literature to that effect. But this literature had little to do with Dr. Gabriel's causal theory and therefore did not counter the proposition that his expert opinion was based on novel science. Therefore, a Davis-Frye hearing was more than justified in light of the information before the trial court when it ruled on defendant's motion in limine. The proponent of expert opinion testimony bears the burden of proving that the contested opinion is based on generally accepted methodology. [42] Because there was no evidence to indicate that Dr. Gabriel's theory was anything but novel, the trial court was required to conduct the Davis-Frye inquiry requested by defendant. Had the trial court conducted the assessment requirement by MRE 702, it might well have determined that Dr. Gabriel's theory was not recognized as required by our rules of evidence. Indeed, the evidence plaintiff offered in support of Dr. Gabriel should have provided sufficient notice to the trial court that his theory lacked general acceptance in the medical community. For one thing, Dr. Gabriel was unable to cite a single study supporting his traumatic injury theory during a voir dire conducted at trial. The only authorities he offered for the proposition that excessive amounts of Pitocin may cause cerebral palsy through the traumatic mechanism he described at trial were studies he cited in which Pitocin caused cerebral palsy in animals when given in excessive amounts. These studies did not involve the bumping and grinding mechanism on which Dr. Gabriel's expert testimony relied. In fact, Dr. Gabriel expressly distinguished the mechanism to which he attributed plaintiff's injuries from those at work in the animal studies. It would appear, then, that there was little evidence that Dr. Gabriel's theory was recognized, much less generally accepted, within pediatric neurology. Second, had the court conducted the MRE 702 inquiry requested by defendant, it might have discovered that Dr. Gabriel's theory lacked evidentiary support. Dr. Gabriel was unable to identify the specific part of Ms. Craig's anatomy with which, according to his theory, plaintiff's head repeatedly collided during labor. Indeed, Dr. Gabriel pointedly refused to identify this anatomical structure on a chart, contending that such testimony was beyond his expertise. This failure to root his causal theory in anything but his own hypothetical depiction of female anatomy indicates that Dr. Gabriel's testimony may have been too speculative under MRE 702 to assist the trier of fact. Finally, a Davis-Frye /MRE 702 hearing should have alerted the court to the error described in part IV. At no point did Dr. Gabriel opine that the traumatic and vascular mechanisms he described could cause cerebral palsy, or that those mechanisms might produce the asymmetrical development shown in plaintiff's MRI. Thus, Dr. Gabriel's testimony supported plaintiff's medical malpractice claim only if the jury was permitted to assume, without supporting evidence, that a causal connection existed between these elements. As shown in part IV, this is not a permissible inference. Consequently, the court again had reason to conclude that Dr. Gabriel's testimony could not have assist[ed] the trier of fact given the yawning gap between Dr. Gabriel's testimony and the conclusions plaintiff hoped the jury would draw from it. Although the trial court clearly erred in declining to review Dr. Gabriel's testimony before its admission, we need not determine whether reversal on this basis alone is warranted under the substantial justice standard of our court rules. [43] For the reasons stated below, remand for a Davis-Frye hearing is unnecessary given plaintiff's failure to establish the causation element of his medical malpractice claim.