Opinion ID: 353178
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: dr. koven's testimony

Text: 20 This allegation of error raises questions of substantially greater magnitude. Of the doctors O'Gee had consulted in the period immediately following the incident, a number were present right in New York, where the trial was held. Yet instead of calling any of these doctors, who had had a chance to examine her when both the nature of her injuries and the probability of their being sequelae of the incident would have been most apparent, she called only Dr. Koven, a doctor retained for the purposes of the litigation, and who first saw O'Gee in December of 1976, more than four years after the buffet. 21 It was through the testimony of Dr. Koven that O'Gee presented to the jury the opinions of the doctors she had seen in 1972 and 1973. Judge Weinstein permitted the witness to testify not only to what O'Gee had told him about her condition and its genesis, but also to what O'Gee had told him that the other doctors had told her about her injuries. Thus, Dr. Koven's testimony contained both single and multiple hearsay on crucial issues. 22 Prior to the adoption of the Federal Rules of Evidence, a non-treating doctor such as Dr. Koven would have been permitted to recite his patient's statements to him, not as proof of the facts stated, but only to show the basis of his opinion. W. McCormick, Evidence § 267 (1954). The Federal Rules, however, rejected this distinction as being too esoteric for a jury to recognize. 4 Weinstein & Berger, Evidence P 803(4)(01). Rule 803(4) clearly permits the admission into evidence of what O'Gee told Dr. Koven about her condition, so long as it was relied on by Dr. Koven in formulating his opinion a foundation that was properly laid. 23 Nowhere does the commentary on Rule 803(4) indicate, however, whether the Rule was intended to go so far as to permit a doctor to testify to his patient's version of other doctors' opinions, particularly when no showing is made of those other doctors' unavailability. We need not reach the furthest extent of this issue, however, because Dr. Koven clearly stated that he was not relying solely on O'Gee's recollection of the other doctors' opinions, but actually had before him the reports of at least two of those doctors, and of the hospital where O'Gee's laminectomy was performed. Defendant and third-party defendant were aware of what those reports showed, and should have been prepared to counter them as best they could regardless of how testimony concerning them was introduced. In fact, it appears that portions of the hospital record were used quite effectively against Dr. Koven on cross-examination. Under the circumstances of this case, we do not think it was an abuse of discretion for Judge Weinstein to permit Dr. Koven to testify as he did. We observe, however, that while expert witnesses are to be permitted to explain the basis of their opinions, we do not here decide that that leeway extends to the kind of multiple hearsay that would have been present here in the absence of the doctors' reports.