Wrongful death case (and expert opinion) is reinstated

This is a wrongful death case against Correctional Medical Care, Inc. An inmate died at the Schenectady County Correctional Facility. The trial court dismissed the case after crediting the defendants' medical expert and finding plaintiff's medical expert report to be inadmissible. The Court of Appeals reverses and the case returns to the district court.

The case is Richardson v. Correctional Medical Care, Inc., a summary order issued on May 17. When the trial court excludes evidence at the pre-trial stage, the standard of review is "abuse of discretion" which is as deferential to the trial court as you can get. These appeals are tough to win, but they can be won. Plaintiff wins this appeal.

First, the trial court rejected the plaintiff's expert opinion because it was submitted in the form of an unsworn letter. Such documents are generally inadmissible under Second Circuit precedent. But in this case, the doctor reaffirmed his opinion in deposition, emphasizing that the inmate's medical history and symptomology in the days leading up to his death made it imperative that someone check the functionality of cardioverter-defilibrator. This sworn deposition cures the unsworn expert letter. As a further footnote to this holding, the deposition was unexecuted, which means the doctor did not sign it. But the court reporter, who is a notary public, did certify that the transcript is authentic. That's enough to make the the doctor's opinion admissible.

Second, while the district court held the doctor's expert opinion was not reliable under Fed. R. Evid. 702 and Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), the district court improperly resolved disputed issues of fact in reaching this holding. The district court did not identify any basis for concluding that plaintiff's doctor's opinion was not based on sufficient facts or data or was not the product of reliable principles and methods that were reliably applied to the facts of this case. In the end, the Court of Appeals (Raggi, Livingston, and Carney) states, neither expert offered a definitive opinion that conclusively established the case of the inmate's death. In excluding the plaintiff's expert opinion, the trial court "deprived Ms. Richardson the opportunity to present her case to the jury tasked with assessing the credibility of the parties' competing experts and determining the weight that should be afforded to their opinions."