Opinion ID: 3010261
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Dr. Carpenter

Text: The first requirement of Rule 702 -- that the proposed witness be an expert -- has been liberally construed by this Court. Paoli II, 35 F.3d at 741. We have held that a broad range of knowledge, skills, and training qualify an expert as such, and have eschewed imposing overly rigorous requirements of expertise. Id.; see also Hammond v. International Harvester Co., 691 F.2d 646, 653 (3d Cir. 1982)(permitting engineer with sales experience in automotive and agricultural equipment, who also taught high school automobile repair, to testify in products liability action involving tractors). Velasquez, 64 F.3d at 849. Dr. Carpenter, John Holbrook's treating physician, specializes in internal medicine. At trial, Dr. Carpenter described the medical procedures undertaken to diagnose and treat John Holbrook. In great detail, he described the treatment, including his injection of the chemotherapeutic agent fluorouracil into his patient's chest cavity. During Carpenter's direct examination, when the subject turned to whether he designed the treatment for a specific malignancy, the court interrupted and stated: He gave the treatment that he gave. This witness has not been qualified and he will not be permitted to give an opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty as to whether or not the cancer was mesothelioma. 8 The court prevented the treating physician from testifying: (1) that he made a diagnosis for which he treated Mr. Holbrook; (2) that his diagnosis was mesothelioma; (3) as to his preliminary impression of the decedent; (4) as to the diagnosis in the pathology report analyzing a tissue sample of Holbrook's lungs, a report which Dr. Carpenter requested and on which he relied in treating his patient; and (5) as to the decedent's symptoms. The court excluded this testimony because Dr. Carpenter was not an oncologist or a specialist in what the court inexplicably termed definitive cancer diagnosis. Referring to Dr. Carpenter's reliance on the pathology report, the court interjected that Dr. Carpenter did not make his own diagnosis, despite the fact that Dr. Carpenter testified that he did exactly that. Dr. Carpenter testified that he routinely relies on pathology reports to assist him in treating his patients, because pathologists have more experience examining and diagnosing tissue specimens. Specifically, Dr. Carpenter relied on the pathology report he had ordered to confirm his clinical impression and diagnosis of John Holbrook. Dr. Carpenter's reliance on the pathology report to confirm his diagnosis does not reflect negatively on his qualifications or ability to diagnose his patient; to the contrary, it reflects routine procedure in medical treatment, as recognized by Rule 703. Because of our liberal approach to admitting expert testimony, most arguments about an expert's qualifications relate more to the weight to be given the expert's testimony, than to 9 its admissibility. Thus, witnesses may be competent to testify as experts even though they may not, in the court's eyes, be the best qualified. Who is best qualified is a matter of weight upon which reasonable jurors may disagree. In Paoli II, we reversed the district court's finding that a witness was not qualified because we found that the doctor, while arguably a relatively poor clinician and less than fully credible witness, qualifie[d] as an expert. 35 F.3d at 753. Similarly, in re Paoli R.R. Yard PCB Litigation (Paoli I), 916 F.2d 829 (3d Cir. 1990), we stated that: insistence on a certain kind of degree or background is inconsistent with our jurisprudence in this area. The language of Rule 702 and the accompanying advisory notes make it clear that various kinds of knowledge skill, experience, training or education, Fed. R. Evid. 702, qualify an expert as such. Id. at 855. Following this logic, it is an abuse of discretion to exclude testimony simply because the trial court does not deem the proposed expert to be the best qualified or because the proposed expert does not have the specialization that the court considers most appropriate. Id. at 856. The court's mistaken approach restricted Dr. Carpenter's testimony based on a requirement that the witness practice a particular specialty to testify concerning certain matters. In light of our liberal standard governing the qualifications of a proffered expert witness, and our acceptance of more general qualifications, we hold that the district court erred by finding that Dr. Carpenter was not qualified to render a diagnosis or to 10 discuss the pathology report because he was not a pathologist, oncologist or expert in definitive cancer diagnosis.1 The Notes of the Advisory Committee on Rule 703, the corollary to Rule 702, refer to, inter alia, reliance on reports of others, and further illustrate the trial court's error. The Notes provide: a physician in his own practice bases his diagnosis on information from numerous sources and of considerable variety, including statements by patients and relatives, reports and opinions from nurses, technicians and other doctors, hospital records, and X rays. Most of them are admissible in evidence, but only with the expenditure of substantial time in producing and examining various authenticating witnesses. The physician makes life-and-death decisions in reliance upon them. His validation, expertly performed and subject to cross-examination, ought to suffice for judicial purposes. The Federal Rules of Evidence are meant to instruct the district courts in the sound exercise of their discretion in making admissibility determinations and should not be interpreted as exclusionary rules. It would be inconsistent and run counter to the Rules' liberal policy of admissibility to allow an outside 1 Federal Rule of Evidence 102 provides that: These rules shall be construed to secure fairness in administration, elimination of unjustifiable expense and delay, and promotion of growth and development of the law of evidence to the end that the truth may be ascertained and proceedings justly determined. Our approach to expert qualifications comports with the liberal policy of admissibility embodied in the rules and with the mandate of Rule 102. The district court's approach, however, would unjustly increase litigation costs by requiring litigants in countless cases to hire a host of experts out of fear that their treating physicians, in whom they entrusted their health and lives, would not make the grade when it came time to testify in court. 11 expert, hired solely for litigation purposes, to rely on and testify about a pathology report, but exclude testimony by the treating physician who ordered the report and relied on it for life and death decisions about the patient's treatment. Opinions by physicians who have neither examined nor treated a patient have less probative force, as a general matter, then they would have if they had treated or examined him. Wier ex rel. Wier v. Heckler, 734 F.2d 955, 963 (3d Cir. 1984). In the context of social security disability cases, in fact, we afford greater weight to a treating physician's opinion. See Dorf v. Bowen, 794 F.2d 896 (3d Cir. 1986); Brewster v. Heckler, 786 F.2d 581 (3d Cir. 1986). The rationale for giving greater weight to a treating physician's opinion is that he is employed to cure and has a greater opportunity to know and observe his patient. . . . Sprague v. Bowen, 812 F.2d 1226, 1230 (9th Cir. 1987). We conclude that the court erred by excluding the treating physician's testimony.