Court Opinion

ID: 9585524
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:01:21.97315+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:41:17.066959
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE COMPTON,
dissenting in part.
In an assignment of cross-error, the defendants contend that the trial court erred in allowing Dr. Chapman to be cross-examined with a medical article that he did not recognize as authoritative and that contained hearsay opinions of other authors and other medical publications. The majority agrees that the trial court erred in this respect but holds that the error was harmless. In my opinion the error was harmful.
To support its harmless-error ruling, the majority asserts that the witness, “independent” of the medical article, “admitted the same findings described in the publication that was used to cross-examine him.”
Excerpts from medical books or treatises, even though recognized as standard authorities on the subject to which they relate, are not admissible as evidence to prove the truth of the statements therein contained. Hopkins v. Gromovsky, 198 Va. 389, 394, 94 S.E.2d 190, 193 (1956). But when a witness testifies as an expert, the witness may be cross-examined by reading to the witness pertinent extracts from a scientific book or article, which the witness recognizes as authoritative, and asking whether the witness agrees or disagrees with the statements in the writing. Id. at 395, 94 S.E.2d at 194. This procedure may be used merely “to test the knowledge and accuracy” of the expert, id.; use as substantive evidence of the truth of the statements or opinions in the article is specifically disallowed. Todd v. Williams, 242 Va. 178, 182-83, 409 S.E.2d 450, 452-53 (1991).
In the present case, by stating that the expert witness “admitted the same findings described in the publication that was used to cross-examine him,” the majority implies that the content of the publication is admissible as substantive evidence and, because the article was improperly used, that error became harmless when the witness offered the same evidence himself. But whether the witness “admitted the *477same findings” is irrelevant in a consideration of the proper use of the medical publication; the content of the publication is not substantive evidence, only a means to attack the expert’s credibility by testing the “knowledge and accuracy” of the witness. Thus, the so-called “admission” by the expert should not be employed as a basis for a harmless-error ruling; for error relating to credibility to be harmless in this context, the record must establish that the expert’s credibility was impaired by other cross-examination or other evidence, which is not the situation here.
Furthermore, even if the majority does not imply that content of the publication may be used as substantive evidence, I do not agree that the record supports the conclusion that the expert witness confirmed the findings of the article by testimony “independent” of the article. The entire last phase of cross-examination of the witness centered around the article and its contents, which was improperly used without proper foundation, as the majority holds.
Plaintiff’s counsel had set the stage for the discussion by referring to the rate of survival of patients with a lesion the size of the plaintiff’s, and by asking the witness to agree with the opinion from the publication “that with lesions of two centimeters or less, you can have between a 53 percent to an 80 percent survivability between four to five years.” Five questions later, the following colloquy between plaintiff’s counsel and the witness took place, giving rise to the majority’s “independent” rationale:
“Q Okay; and let’s say in the abstract then, stage I cancers, do you agree or disagree, that however they’re found out to be stage I, whether clinically or whether surgically, stage I cancers have been found to carry between 53 and 80 percent survivability?
A No. I don’t agree with that.
Q Thank you.
A Surgically staged cancers have been found to have that kind of survival.”
The expert’s second answer was not “independent” of the questioning that improperly employed the publication. The cross-examiner’s use of “in the abstract” did not make the expert’s second answer unrelated, unconnected, or detached from the line of questioning based on the tainted publication. Rather, it was directly connected to, related *478to, and associated with the improper use of the article; the interrogation even employed precisely the same percentages set forth in the publication.
A trial court’s erroneous ruling, to constitute reversible error, must be material and prejudicial to the interests of the party complaining of it. CSX Transp., Inc. v. Casole, 247 Va. 180, 183, 441 S.E.2d 212, 214 (1994). In my opinion, the extensive use of inadmissible opinions from the tainted publication was material and prejudicial to the defendants’ interests.
I would not reinstate the verdict but would remand this case for a new trial on all issues.