Opinion ID: 1058370
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 16

Heading: Hearsay Medical Literature

Text: The defendants argue that the trial court erred in allowing the plaintiff to (a) introduce evidence indicating that medical literature supported the testimony of the plaintiff's expert witness, Dr. Witt, (b) introduce evidence that no medical literature supported the testimony of the defendants' expert witness, Dr. Eichorn, and (c) make several arguments to the jury based on existence or absence of medical literature. The defendants argue that the medical literature evidence was inadmissible hearsay and that the arguments were improper. The plaintiff argues that no hearsay statements were read from the medical literature or used as substantive evidence and that testimony regarding the lack of medical literature was non-hearsay. Accordingly, the plaintiff also argues that no improper arguments were made to the jury in this regard. The record reveals that the plaintiff's expert witness, Dr. Witt, was recalled to rebut the testimony of the defendants' expert witness, Dr. Eichorn. After stating that at the concentrations used, Desflurane eliminates virtually all of the autoregulatory response, Dr. Witt responded yes when asked if his opinion was supported in the medical literature. When Dr. Witt was then asked, And, in substance, what does it say, the trial court sustained the defendants' objection. Thereafter, Dr. Witt was asked on four occasions whether medical literature was consistent with or supported his testimony. Dr. Witt answered yes to these questions without any objection by the defendants. The record reveals that the defendants' expert witness, Dr. Eichorn, testified that the death in this case resulted from occlusion of the carotid arteries. On crossexamination, Dr. Eichorn was asked on at least three occasions to cite one piece of medical literature that supported his opinion. The defendants did not object to the questions. Dr. Eichorn did not identify any specific articles. In our view, the record does not support the defendants' argument that the trial court committed reversible error with regard to questions regarding the existence or the absence of medical literature. First, as noted above, the defendants failed to object contemporaneously to the questions asked of Dr. Witt or Dr. Eichorn. Thus, the defendants failed to preserve the issue for review on appeal. Second, even if the issue had been preserved, the record reveals that no hearsay statements were read from medical texts or medical articles and admitted as substantive evidence. See Tenn. R. Evid. 801(c). To the degree that Dr. Witt's testimony implicitly revealed the substance of the medical literature, i.e., that the medical literature was consistent with or supportive of his testimony, there was no showing that it was intended to show the truth of the matter asserted. Indeed the questions as to the presence or absence of literature were designed to elicit the basis of the experts' testimony. See McDaniel, 955 S.W.2d at 266. Accordingly, the defendants have failed to show that the trial court committed reversible error in this regard. It follows, therefore, that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in allowing plaintiff's counsel to make references to the existence or absence of medical literature during closing argument.