PROFESSION

Medical expert barred from Georgia court forever

In the Courts. By Tanya Albert, AMNews staff. Dec. 13, 2004.

Analyzing the impact of recent court decisions on physicians

In a move that legal experts say is unlike any they've seen before, a Georgia judge has banned an expert witness from ever testifying in his courtroom because he said the testimony the physician gave was "conflicting, lacking in credibility and apparently untruthful."

The doctor denies the judge's allegations and is appealing the ruling.

The order comes at a time when some physicians are making a push to better police expert witness testimony as a way of limiting the number of meritless lawsuits being filed.

Legal experts say that federal judges have not allowed physician expert witnesses to appear in court in a specific case when their testimony appears to be "junk science."

That rule was established by a 1993 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.

But they say it's pretty unusual for a state judge to disallow information from an expert and outright ban the expert based on depositions and affidavits collected before the judge decided whether to dismiss the lawsuit.

"You don't see this very much," said Timothy H. Bendin, an Atlanta attorney representing one of the physicians named in the Georgia lawsuit.

Attorneys for those physicians say that Fulton County (Ga.) State Court Judge Craig L. Schwall Sr. was correct in dismissing the testimony of vascular surgeon Larry R. Williams, MD, given changes that were made to the testimony through what's called an errata sheet -- a paper a witness can file to make changes to testimony after it's been given.

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