Court Opinion

ID: 9746723
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:35:08.55584+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:16.324069
License: Public Domain

WIEAND, Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I agree with the majority that the trial court correctly instructed the jury (1) on the standard of care for an orthopedic resident and (2) that a physician does not warrant a cure. For the reasons which follow, however, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s determination that the depositions of the defendant physician could not be read to the jury.
With respect to this issue, I would hold that the controlling authority is Pa.R.C.P. 4020(a)(2), which provides as follows:
(a) At the trial, any part or all of a deposition, so far as admissible under the rules of evidence, may be used against any party who was present or represented at the taking of the deposition or who had notice thereof if required, in accordance with any one of the following provisions:
(2) The deposition of a party ... may be used by an adverse party for any purpose.
This rule required that appellant be permitted to use Dr. Codario’s depositions, including the portion wherein he opined that the staph infection had entered the decedent’s blood stream through the ulcer under her cast.
The majority relies upon decisions of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Evans v. Otis Elevator Co., 403 Pa. 13, 168 A.2d 573 (1961) and Pennsylvania Company for Insurances on Lives and Granting Annuities, Trustee v. Phil*601adelphia, 262 Pa. 439, 105 A. 630 (1918). These decisions do, as the majority correctly observes, hold that a witness cannot be compelled to give expert opinion testimony against his will. In those cases, however, the expert witness was an independent witness and not a party to the action. In the instant case, the testimony being offered by the plaintiff was that of a party defendant. Such testimony was admissible. It was not rendered inadmissible because the defendant, who was also a physician, had expressed a medical opinion.
My research discloses no appellate court decision in this Commonwealth which holds that a physician who is a party cannot be examined about his medical opinion without his consent. The issue, however, was considered at the trial court level in a decision by the Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County in Decker v. Pohlidal, 22 D. & C.2d 631 (1960). There, the trial court rejected the rationale relied upon by the majority in the instant case. It reasoned as follows:
Defense counsel contends that his objections should be sustained on the theory that Doctor Pohlidal cannot be asked by plaintiff to express his expert opinion on any matter. In support of this contention counsel cites the case of Penna. Co. for Ins. on Lives and Granting Annuities v. Philadelphia, 262 Pa. 439, wherein, at pages 441, 442, Justice Simpson stated:
“The process of the courts may always be invoked to require witnesses to appear and testify to any facts within their knowledge; but no private litigant has a right to ask them to go beyond that____ But the private litigant has no more right to compel a citizen to give up the product of his brain, than he has to compel the giving up of material things. In each case it is a matter of bargain, which, as ever, it takes two to make, and to make unconstrained.”
We cannot and do not sustain defendant’s objections on this ground. The foregoing expert witness rule is inapplicable where defendant-doctor, himself an expert, is *602on trial for malpractice. In such situation no sound distinction can be drawn between questioning defendant-doctor as to fact and questioning him concerning his opinion, since fact and opinion are inextricably intermingled on the fundamental issue as to whether defendant-doctor departed from accepted standards in diagnosing and treating plaintiffs injuries.
Id. at 639-640 (emphasis added). In my judgment, this reasoning is sound.1
The courts of other jurisdictions have uniformly adopted similar reasoning in concluding that a plaintiff may question a defendant physician regarding matters which require the expression of medical opinion. See, e.g.: Lawless v. Calaway, 24 Cal.2d 81, 147 P.2d 604 (1944); Abbey v. Jackson, 483 A.2d 330 (D.C.App.1984); Nishi v. Hartwell, 52 Haw. 188, 473 P.2d 116 (1970); Walker v. Distler, 78 Idaho 38, 296 P.2d 452 (1956); State for Use of Miles v. Brainin, 224 Md. 156, 167 A.2d 117, 88 A.L.R.2d 1178 (1961); Dark v. Fetzer, 6 Mich.App. 308, 149 N.W.2d 222 (1967); Anderson v. Florence, 288 Minn. 351, 181 N.W.2d 873 (1970); McDermott v. Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat Hospital, 15 N.Y.2d 20, 255 N.Y.S.2d 65, 203 N.E.2d 469 (1964); Iverson v. Lancaster, 158 N.W.2d 507 (N.D.1968); Oleksiw v. Weidener, 2 Ohio St.2d 147, 207 N.E.2d 375 (1965); Wilkinson v. Vesey, 110 R.I. 606, 295 A.2d 676 *603(1972); Shurpit v. Brah, 30 Wis.2d 388, 141 N.W.2d 266 (1966). See also: Rogotzki v. Schept, 91 NJ.Super. 135, 219 A.2d 426 (1966) (in malpractice action it is proper in pre-trial discovery for plaintiff to inquire of defendant physicians as to their opinion and the exercise of their judgment).
In my judgment, this is the better view. I am persuaded by the rationale of the New York Court of Appeals in McDermott v. Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat Hospital, supra, where the Court said:
There is nothing unfair about such a practice. Unlike his counterpart in a criminal prosecution, the defendant in a civil suit has no inherent right to remain silent or, once on the stand, to answer only those inquiries which will have no adverse effect on his case. Rather, he must, if called as a witness, respond to virtually all questions aimed at eliciting information, he may possess relevant to the issues, even though his testimony on such matters might further the plaintiffs case. We cannot agree with the suggestion that it is somehow neither sporting nor consistent with the adversary system to allow a party to prove his case through his opponent’s own testimony (see, e.g., Osborn v. Carey, 24 Idaho 158, 168, 132 P. 967, supra; see, also, Comment, 5 So.Cal.L.Rev. 448, 449-450) but, whatever the merits of this view, we prefer to believe that, in a situation such as the present, “[t]he ultimate requirement that judicial decisions be based on the * * * facts overcomes any detriment which might be suffered by the adversary system”. (Friedenthal, Discovery and Use of an Adverse Party’s Expert Information, 14 Stan.L.Rev. 455, 487; see, also, King, The Adverse Witness Statute and Expert Opinion, 4 Wayne L.Rev. 228, 229.)
Courts are intent upon arriving at just decisions and upon employing properly expedient means to attain such an end. If a defendant in a malpractice action may truthful*604ly testify that his conduct conformed to the standard required, his case is, of course, substantially strengthened [sic] and, if he cannot so testify, the plaintiffs chances of recovery are unquestionably increased. In either case, the objective of the court in doing justice is achieved.
It is true that, in People ex rel. Kraushaar Bros. & Co. v. Thorpe, 296 N.Y. 223, 72 N.E.2d 165, upon which the courts below and the defendants rely, this court explicitly held that a person may not be compelled to testify and give his opinion as an expert against his will. Our holding in Kraushaar, however, is not dispositive of the issue now before us. In that case, the witness (a real estate appraiser) called to testify as an expert was not a party to the action. Such an independent, disinterested witness, we held, could not be required to testify as an expert. That our decision in Kraushaar was not concerned with the situation where the expert and the defendant are one and the same person is implicit from the very tone of the opinion itself and, more importantly, from the reasoning underlying the decision. That reasoning, although not expressly articulated in the opinion, was relied upon in Buchman v. State, 59 Ind. 1, a case cited with approval in Kraushaar (296 N.Y., at p. 225, 72 N.E.2d, at p. 166). As the Indiana court noted (59 Ind. 1, 6), “ ‘to compel a person to attend [a trial] merely because he is accomplished in a particular science, art, or profession, would subject the same individual to be called upon, in every cause in which any question in his department of knowledge is to be solved. Thus, the most eminent physician might be compelled * * * to attend from the remotest part of the district, and give his opinion in every trial in which a medical question should arise' ”.
It is quite clear that no such burden or unfairness is occasioned by the practice of compelling a doctor, who is actually a defendant in the malpractice action, to testify as an expert. It is, therefore, not inconsistent to permit the plaintiff to question the defendant as an expert even though we would not accord him the same right with *605respect to an unwilling witness who is in no way connected with the action. The very inability of a plaintiff in a malpractice action to compel the attendance and testimony of a “disinterested” medical witness underscores the need and importance of allowing such a plaintiff the opportunity of questioning his adversary as an expert.
McDermott v. Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat Hospital, supra, at 28-29, 255 N.Y.S.2d at 72-73, 203 N.E.2d at 474-475.
It must necessarily follow from this reasoning that the trial court erred when it refused to allow plaintiff to read to the jury the deposition testimony of Dr. Codario, a party defendant. As to Dr. Codario, however, the error was harmless. The receipt of his testimony regarding the entry of the staph infection, as the majority has explained, would not have altered his non-liability, for his treatment of the patient did not commence until after the infection had developed. As to him, the compulsory non-suit was properly entered.
For these reasons, I would reverse and remand for new trial the claims against all defendants except Dr. Codario. As to him, I would affirm.

. In Horst v. Shearburn, 87 Montg.Co.L.R. 214 (1966), aff’d, 426 Pa. 439, 233 A.2d 236 (1967), the Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County ruled that the plaintiff in a malpractice action could not compel the defendant physician to testify as an expert at trial to establish the generally accepted medical practice in the community. The court’s ruling, however, was based primarily on the fact that the plaintiff had presented his own expert witnesses at trial to testify on this point. The court left open the possibility that such testimony from a defendant physician would be proper under other circumstances, stating in dicta that:
In the case at bar, the plaintiff had three expert medical witnesses, two of whom testified fully as to the medical and surgical procedures of the defendant in relation to the community standards. If the plaintiff had been unable to obtain his own expert witnesses and was faced with a nonsuit, it is possible that the court may well have granted the plaintiffs request to call the defendant as his only expert.
Horst v. Shearburn, supra at 229.