06/06/2017    

IN THE COURTS

PA Ruling Letting Orthopedic Surgeon Testify on Podiatrist's Care Stands

 

The Pennsylvania state Supreme Court has declined to take up an appeal from a lower court's ruling allowing a plaintiff in a medical malpractice lawsuit against a podiatric surgeon to introduce expert testimony from an orthopedic surgeon, despite the expert's different subspecialty and the fact that he has not performed any surgery in over eight years. A split three-judge Superior Court panel previously held that Dr. Mark Robert Foster could testify in Roulette Price's suit against Dr. Alan Catanzariti, reversing the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas' finding that Foster failed to meet the qualification requirements of the Medical Care Affordability and Reduction of Error Act and remanding for a new trial.

 

"The fact that Dr. Foster has not performed surgery in eight years, or that he specializes in the spine rather than the foot, goes to the weight of his testimony, not its admissibility, and is for the jury to consider," Judge Kate Ford Elliott wrote for the 2-1 majority in Price v. Catanzariti.

 

Source: P.J. D'Annunzio, The Legal Intelligencer [6/2/17]