The Connecticut Appellate Court ruled that a trial court was within its discretion in precluding two expert witnesses from providing testimony in a wrongful death medical malpractice lawsuit involving a tragic stillbirth. This case provides a teachable moment – to beat that phrase into the ground – for Maryland medical malpractice lawyers.
The child’s parents brought a medical malpractice action against the doctor alleging the doctor, who specialized in obstetrics and gynecology, did not properly treat the mother’s gestational diabetes.
The take home lesson for medical malpractice lawyers: don’t assume your experts can speak to causation just because they are doctors who are can opine on the standard of care.
Prior to the start of the trial, the defendants filed a motion in limine to preclude the testimony of two of the plaintiffs’ disclosed expert witnesses who, while also board certified in obstetrics and gynecology, were not qualified to provide opinion testimony on the cause of death of the intrauterine fetus.
The trial court granted the motion finding that there was “no evidence from which the jury could properly determine that there is a causal connection between the alleged deviation and the death of the fetus in utero.”
You can read the full opinion in Weaver v. McKnight here.