Will Massachusetts court allow expert to be sued?

At issue in the case is the extent to which a medical expert witness is protected by state law.

By Tanya Albert, AMNews staff. Oct. 4, 2004.

Massachusetts' highest court is set to decide just how much protection physician experts hired by the state to review another doctor's work will receive in the court system.

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts on Oct. 5 is scheduled to hear arguments in a case in which reviewed psychiatrist Kennard C. Kobrin, MD, claims that he should be allowed to sue hired expert doctor David R. Gastfriend, MD, an addiction medicine specialist who critiqued his work for the Board of Registration in Medicine.

A lower court threw out the lawsuit, saying that state laws protected Dr. Gastfriend from being sued. Dr. Kobrin has asked the state's highest court to allow him to go forward with the lawsuit, which alleges that Dr. Gastfriend is liable for, among other things, expert witness malpractice.

One side says a decision that prevents the lawsuit from advancing would unfairly leave reviewed physicians without legal recourse.

"There has to be some right of the person being accused to have redress," said George C. Deptula, the attorney representing Dr. Kobrin. "This plays into medicine being an art more than a science. Different people have different views."

The other side says a ruling from the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts allowing the lawsuit to go forward would make it decidedly more difficult to find physicians willing to offer their expertise in peer review cases.

"The concern is if doctors have to defend these kinds of suits, it would be a deterrent to getting involved in disciplinary proceedings," said John A. Donovan III, one of the attorneys representing Dr. Gastfriend.