Court Opinion

ID: 9706907
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:55:03.153857+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:25.615448
License: Public Domain

RILEY, Judge,
dissenting with separate opinion.
I respectfully dissent from the majority's decision to affirm the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Dr. Young and ING. First, we note that in reviewing a grant of summary judgment, facts alleged in a complaint must be taken as true except to the extent that they are negated by depositions, answers to interrogatories, affidavits and admissions. Walther v. Ind. Lawrence Bank, 579 N.E.2d 643, 647 (Ind.Ct.App.1991), reh'g denied, trans. denied.
The designated evidence indicates that a unanimous Medical Review Panel determined that the evidence did not support the conclusion that Dr. Young failed to meet the applicable standard of care in treating Blaker as charged in the complaint. When a medical review panel renders an opinion in favor of the physician, the plaintiff must then come forward with expert medical testimony to rebut the panel's opinion in order to survive summary judgment. Bunch v. Tiwari, 711 N.E.2d 844, 850 (Ind.Ct.App.1999).
In this regard, Blaker designated two affidavits of expert witnesses. Dr. Shah stated, "I am of the opinion, assuming Dr. Young did not identify the right PICA during the surgery of March 24th, 2003, it is below a reasonable medical standard to not do so." (Appellant's App. p. 81). Blaker's second expert, Dr. Boaz, who was also a member of the Medical Review Panel, opined that "I am willing to alter my impression such that if the right PICA was not identified and was injured because of that, then that would fall below the standard of care." (Appellant's App. p. 83). Additionally, Dr. Boaz noted that an injury to the right cerebellum was confirmed by the MRIs for February 10, 2006 and December 19, 2006-MRIs which had not been available to the Medical Review Panel. (Appellant's App. p. 83). In granting summary judgment to Dr. Young, the trial court concluded that these affidavits were not admissible evidence.
Pursuant to Indiana Rule of Evidence 702(a),
[i]f scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise.
*654In Jordan v. Deery, 609 N.E.2d 1104, 1110 (Ind.1993), our supreme court noted that an expert opinion in the context of summary judgment proceedings should recite the expert's credentials and the records reviewed and relied upon by the expert. Both experts' affidavits satisfy these Jordan requirements.
The majority's opinion now takes issue with the "hypothetical" language included in both affidavits. Both Dr. Shah and Dr. Boaz refer to the conditional statement that assunuing/if Dr. Young failed to identify the right PICA, then he deviated from the standard of care. The majority characterizes this statement as a "speculation" and, as such, concludes Dr. Shah's and Dr. Boar's opinions to be insufficient to raise a genuine issue of fact. See op. p. 652.
Indiana Rule of Evidence 702(a) does not establish any threshold of certainty, such as "to a reasonable degree of medical certainty," for expert opinion. Certainty is not required. Biehl v. State, 738 N.E.2d 337, 338 n. 1 (Ind.Ct.App.2000), trans. denied; Yang v. Stafford, 515 N.E.2d 1157, 1161 (Ind.Ct.App.1987), reh'g denied, trans. denied. Any lack of detail in an affidavit goes to the weight and credibility to be assigned to it, not whether it is adequate to create a question for the trier of fact. Jordan, 609 N.E.2d at 1111.
In Bunch, we evaluated the affidavit of a treating physician who declared that [I/f Mr. Bunch was pain-free in his right leg prior to the spinal anesthetic and came out of surgery with immediate pain in his right leg and a dysesthic type of pain, then this pain was likely related to and caused by the spinal puncture or injection of spinal anesthetic.
Bunch, 711 N.E.2d at 851 (emphasis added). We found this statement to be admissible and sufficient to refute the medical review panel's opinion, thereby creating a genuine issue of material fact. Id. Likewise here, the statement contained in Dr. Shah's and Dr. Boaz's affidavits do not rise to the level of a hypothetical situation and should have been admitted. Specifically, both experts testified it would be substandard care if Dr. Young failed to identify the right PICA. Both statements are derived from a review of all the available evidence-including relevant evidence which was not before the Medical Review Panel-and foeus on an uncertainty, incompleteness, and silence in Dr. Young's notes and deposition testimony. In sum, there is no evidence that Dr. Young identified the right PICA; and the inferences from the record, the operative note, the notation of identification of the left PICA and the silence as to the right PICA identification create a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Dr. Young complied with the standard of care. Therefore, I would reverse the trial court and remand for further proceedings.