Marshall v. Medical Associates of Rhode Island, Inc., 95-322-A

• Decision Date: 12 June 1996
• Docket Number: No. 95-322-A,95-322-A
• Citation: 677 A.2d 425
• Parties: Lisa T. MARSHALL v. MEDICAL ASSOCIATES OF RHODE ISLAND, INC., et al. ppeal.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 425

677 A.2d 425

Lisa T. MARSHALL v. MEDICAL ASSOCIATES OF RHODE ISLAND, INC., et al.

No. 95-322-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

June 12, 1996.

Mark B. Morse, Providence, for Plaintiff.

John F. Dolan, Mark P. Dolan, Providence, for Defendant.

OPINION

PER CURIAM.

On April 16, 1996, counsel for the parties came before us to show cause why this appeal from a judgment in favor of the defendants, Medical Associates of Rhode Island, Inc., and Diane DeFusco, after the granting of a directed-verdict motion, now known as a motion for judgment as a matter of law, should not be determined summarily. Having listened to their arguments and reviewed their submissions, we perceive no cause and shall therefore go directly to the nub of this matter without any extended factual exegesis.

This case requires us to construe G.L.1956 § 9-19-41, which provides in pertinent part:

"In any legal action based upon a cause of action * * * for personal injury * * * filed against a licensed physician, hospital, clinic, health maintenance organization, [or] professional service corporation providing health care services * * * only those persons who by knowledge, skill, experience, training or education qualify as experts in the field of the alleged malpractice shall be permitted to give expert testimony as to the alleged malpractice."

On the basis of his reading of § 9-19-41, a justice of the Superior Court barred a medical doctor who was board certified in pediatrics and family medicine from testifying as an expert in a malpractice case involving the treatment of an animal-bite wound by an emergency-room physician/internist. The trial justice apparently believed that, under this statute, the proposed expert witness either had to be board certified or have some other training or experience in the same emergency or internal medicine specialty as the defendant-physician before the proposed expert could be permitted to testify.

Predictably, the trial justice's ruling left plaintiff vulnerable to a Rule 50 motion under the Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure, which the defense successfully deployed to end the case. This appeal ensued.

Because we believe that the above-referenced interpretation is too crabbed a reading of § 9-19-41's requirement that a proposed expert witness be qualified "in the field of the alleged malpractice," we vacate the trial court's granting of a directed verdict after it excluded proffered expert testimony that was crucial to plaintiff's case.

It is, of course, axiomatic that a trial court has wide discretion in determining the competency of a witness to testify as an expert. See, e.g., Owens v. Payless Cashways, Inc., 670 A.2d 1240, 1244 (R.I.1996). But as Justice Doris aptly noted nearly twenty years ago:

"To say * * * that the question is addressed to the trial justice's discretion does not mean that his ruling is not reviewable. What it does mean is that the ruling will be sustained provided the discretion has been soundly and judicially exercised, that is, if it has been exercised in the light of reason applied to all the facts and with a view to the rights of all the parties to the action * * * and not arbitrarily or wilfully, but with just regard to what is right and equitable under the circumstances and the law." De Bartolo v. Di Battista, 117 R.I. 349, 353, 367 A.2d 701, 703 (1976).

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