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Johnson v. Riverdale Anesthesia Assocs. PC

The trial court properly excluded plaintiffs' irrelevant questions regarding what a defense expert would personally have done under the circumstances since the applicable standard of care is one employed by the medical profession generally.

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Certiorari was granted in this medical malpractice action in order to consider the Court of Appeals’ ruling forbidding the plaintiff from cross-examining the defendants’ expert witness as to how he personally would have treated the plaintiffs’ decedent. We conclude that because the standard of care in medical malpractice cases is that which is employed by the medical profession generally, and not what one individual physician would do under the same or similar circumstances, how a testifying medical expert personally would have treated a plaintiff or a plaintiff’s decedent is not relevant to the issue of whether a defendant physician committed malpractice. Moreover, we conclude that how a testifying medical expert personally would have treated a plaintiff or a plaintiff’s decedent cannot be used to impeach the expert’s credibility. Therefore, we affirm.

The decedent, Clair Johnson, suffered a severe adverse reaction to anesthesia she received during surgery. The reaction caused Mrs. Johnson’s oxygen supply to be interrupted, resulting in massive brain trauma and death. Her husband, Donald Johnson, along with the administratrix of her estate collectively “Johnson”, sued the anesthesiologist, Dr. Lawhead, and his employer, Riverdale Anesthesia Associates, Inc. collectively “Anesthesia Associates”, alleging malpractice.

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