Court Opinion

ID: 9586827
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:15:38.878514+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:53.579464
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
concurring in the opinion of Huntley, J.
First of all, it is to be noted that the district court dismissed this action as a summary judgment proceeding. Justice Huntley may be too kind in speaking of this Court’s “overly restrictive construction” placed upon the legislature’s I.C. §§ 6-1012, 6-1013. Worse, perhaps than the super-technical gloss which [a majority of] this Court applies to the legislative language as to qualifying an expert, is the obvious ignoring of the plain language by which the legislature directs the time at which the expert must qualify as an expert.
Section 6-1013 purports to direct and control how an expert qualifies to testify. Section 6-1012 directs and controls when and where the expert must qualify. And it certainly is not required that time and money be expended in doing so before trial and in a summary judgment proceeding.
I ask, find if you can more explicit language than this:
... such claimant or plaintiff must, as an essential part of his or her case in chief, affirmatively prove by direct expert testimony, ...
The insurance carriers defending medical malpractice cases have been having a heyday by reason of the district courts’ failures to hold them to the plain language of the statute. The statute is there, and it is there to be followed.
The defense in a case is certainly able to engage in discovery as to who will be plaintiff’s experts at trial, and undoubtedly has the right to depose them in advance of trial, but the drafters of this particular legislation went this far, and this far only: “Be prepared at trial to meet the requirement of putting forth qualified experts.”
That raises a question, which as I understand it, although I have not yet been brought to agree with its underlying premise, is Rule 1102 of the Idaho Rules of Evidence: “Statutory provisions and rules governing the admissibility of evidence, to the extent they are evidentiary and to the extent that they are in conflict with applicable rules of Idaho Rules of Evidence, are of no force and effect.” Article VII of those Idaho Rules deals with opinions and expert testimony. Rules 702, *219703, and 704 of that article appear to be especially applicable.
HUNTLEY, J., concurs.