Court Opinion

ID: 9744160
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:55:06.670093+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:47.076348
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE WARD, dissenting: I believe that the majority confuses the existence of various schools of medicine that have differing notions as to the origin and treatment of disease with the simple fact that the legislature has provided for the regulation of the various medical professions and occupations. An illustration of this confusion is the majority’s statement that the legislature, by providing for the regulation of physical therapy, nursing, optometry and other medical activities, was expressing a public policy “to recognize and regulate various schools of medicine.” This is of course wrong. The majority then concludes, and mistakenly, I consider, that in order to qualify as an expert witness one must have a license in the profession or occupation where the standard of care is in question. The holding of the license is held to be the touchstone of expert qualifications. No matter how well qualified through education, training and experience the prospective witness may be, the trial court has no discretion to allow expert testimony unless the witness is the holder of a license. The holding here is that one would be unable to testify concerning podiatric standards of care without possessing a license in podiatry. Thus even a professor in a school of podiatry who did not happen also to be licensed to practice podiatry would not be able to testify as to the standards of care required of a podiatrist. Under the holding a physician would be unable to testify to nursing standards of care even though nurses operated under his supervision or to testify to standards for midwives, and this because the physician was not licensed as a nurse or a midwife. The circumstances in Walker v. Bangs (1979), 92 Wash. 2d 854, 601 P.2d 1279, closely resemble those here. In that case the court held that the trial court had erred when it refused, in a malpractice trial, to admit expert testimony on the standard of care applicable to attorneys on the ground that the proposed witness, who taught in a Washington law school, had not been licensed to practice law in that State. I believe that the requiring of a license in the field where the standards of care are under examination is to apply a purely mechanical and formalistic rule. I would adhere to the generally accepted rule that whether a witness is qualified by special skill, knowledge and experience as an expert witness is within the sound discretion of the trial judge and that this exercise of discretion is reviewable only for abuse. Evanston Best Co. v. Goodman (1938), 369 Ill. 207, 212; McCormick, Evidence sec. 13 (2d ed. 1972); Card, Illinois Evidence secs. 218, 219 (1963). MR. CHIEF JUSTICE GOLDENHERSH joins in this dissent.