Opinion ID: 1104619
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Learned Treatise Issue

Text: The rule in Alabama, generally, is that a learned treatise, essay, or pamphlet on a subject of science or art, which is testified to by an expert on the subject as being a standard or trustworthy authority on the subject, is admissible as an exception to the hearsay evidence rule. C. Gamble, McElroy's Alabama Evidence, § 258.01(1) (3d ed. 1977). Extracts from the treatise, however, are not admissible unless the treatise is first approved by an expert as authoritative and standard, and is relevant to the issue for which it is presented in the particular trial. C. Gamble, supra, § 258.01(2), (3). In this case, the Plaintiffs attempted to introduce into evidence a pamphlet published by the American Medical Association entitled Current Opinions of the Judicial Council. While it is well settled in this State that medical treatises are admissible, as a precondition or predicate to their admission, the rule requires that the party seeking to introduce medical books authenticate them as standard works within that profession. Comment, Learned Treatises as Direct Evidence: The Alabama Experience, 1967 Duke L.J. 1169, 1171 (1969). We have searched the record thoroughly for some indication that the Plaintiffs' lawyer properly authenticated this pamphlet. The question that most closely bears on the requisite predicate is: Does [the pamphlet] have within it pronouncements of standards of care for patients by doctors? While that question is an appropriate preliminary inquiry, it falls short of the ultimate question: Is the pamphlet recognized as an authoritative and standard work in the medical profession? The requirement of the rule that the expert witness respond to this all-important question is more than a matter of form or a mere technicality. What the writer in the Duke Law Journal called The Alabama Experience has been hailed for its liberality in relaxing the burden of proof as to scientific and artistic matters. But this liberality cannot be extended to preclude the necessity for authentication of the proffered publication as a recognized standard work within the particular field of art or science. This requisite predicate is the very foundation of the rule itself. Indeed, absent this authentication, there is no proof that the proffered document is in fact a learned treatise; thus its admissibility, as an exception to the hearsay rule, fails.