South Carolina Supreme Court halts out-of-state expert witness rule

Lawyers criticized the law after some court cases stalled.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. Sept. 11, 2006.

South Carolina's Supreme Court has stopped the state's medical board from enforcing a new law that requires out-of-state physicians to obtain a license to serve as expert witnesses.

In its Aug. 24 order, the court said the measure "has the potential to substantially impair the orderly administration of justice." The court said the law casts doubt on a physician's ability to offer testimony if the physician lives outside the state, and it fails to address certain situations such as a physician who at one time was licensed in South Carolina but has since moved to another state.

In its order, the Supreme Court said it expects state legislators to review the law and consider what the court said. The Legislature reconvenes in January.

The South Carolina Board of Medical Examiners said the law is intended to make physicians accountable for what they say as expert witnesses, not discourage them from appearing as experts.

"The law was not designed to restrict a judge's traditional responsibility for determining who should be qualified to testify as an expert in a judicial proceeding. It simply requires that any physician who does so hold a valid South Carolina license," board Vice President Louis E. Costa II, MD, DMD, said in a statement following the court's order. "In this way, the law assures that doctors can be held accountable for what they testify to under oath when it constitutes false, deceptive or misleading testimony. That's what has been missing in the past."