Lawyers from both sides of the litigation aisle have long battled over the presentation of opinions by treating physicians, not only with each other but with the physicians themselves and with the strategic and practical considerations of producing them. This should not be a surprise to anyone who has tried more than a few cases, but jurors tend to be more suspicious of the opinions of doctors who have been retained for litigation purposes. This was effectively confirmed by the New Jersey Supreme Court in Stigliano v. Connaught Labs, 140 N.J. 305 (1995), when the court stated:

Without impugning the expert witnesses who may testify for either plaintiffs or defendants, the treating doctors may be the only medical witnesses who have not been retained in anticipation of trial. A jury could find the treating doctors’ testimony to be more impartial and credible than that of retained experts.

However, despite that credibility, the AMA’s position in section 9.07 of their Principles of Medical Ethics that physicians must reasonably cooperate with their patient’s litigation support, and the decision in Spaulding v. Hussain, 229 N.J. Super. 430, 440 (App. Div. 1988), noting that “unless otherwise agreed, a physician treating an accident victim ‘impliedly agrees to appear and testify on behalf of his patient on issues such as the nature, extent and causality of his patient’s injuries,” many doctors are less than cooperative in a patient’s litigation.

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