{"id":1894,"date":"2020-06-18T22:19:44","date_gmt":"2020-06-19T02:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/in-print\/volume-108-issue-6-june-2020\/trust-me-im-a-doctor-medical-malpractice-as-a-daubert-free-zone\/"},"modified":"2025-05-12T11:13:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:13:54","slug":"trust-me-im-a-doctor-medical-malpractice-as-a-daubert-free-zone","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/in-print\/volume-108\/volume-108-issue-6-june-2020\/trust-me-im-a-doctor-medical-malpractice-as-a-daubert-free-zone\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cTrust Me, I\u2019m a Doctor\u201d: Medical Malpractice as a Daubert-Free Zone"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Note fills a gap in legal scholarship by being the first to undertake a comprehensive, fifty-state analysis of Daubert<\/i><\/span>\u2019s application to medical malpractice litigation. Most of the recent legal literature on Daubert <\/i><\/span>concentrates on its application to criminal cases, mass torts, and patent litigation.\u00a0<\/span>Further, modern scholarship on medical malpractice focuses on damages caps and whether the standard of care should be local or national.\u00a0<\/span>Although scholars have waded into the intersection of Daubert <\/i><\/span>and medical malpractice expert witnesses,\u00a0<\/span>no study has delved into why these experts get a free pass, and how we should react to this phenomenon.<\/p>\n

This Note does not endeavor to prove that applying Daubert <\/i><\/span>in the medical malpractice context would result in more just verdicts. But because the American judicial system strives for fair outcomes and <\/i><\/span>fair process, admitting more reliable expert testimony should be a priority to help cultivate the latter. The admission and exclusion of expert testimony are central to whether there is fair process,\u00a0<\/span>so our judicial system must prioritize the admission of reliable, empirical expert testimony. Although Daubert <\/i><\/span>is a flexible inquiry, it still scrutinizes expert testimony for reliability and accuracy.\u00a0<\/span>Because medical malpractice, first, is prevalent in the United States\u00a0<\/span>and, second, wreaks unquantifiable emotional pain on victims and families, fair process and Daubert <\/i><\/span>bear particular and immediate importance in this type of legal action.<\/p>\n

Part I introduces key terms and the landscape of expert witnesses, Daubert<\/i><\/span>, and medical malpractice litigation. Part II presents legal scholarship\u2019s first fifty-state survey of Daubert<\/i><\/span>\u2019s application to expert witnesses in medical malpractice cases. It concludes that a majority of state courts fail to apply Daubert<\/i><\/span>, instead relying on state legislation governing expert testimony or claiming that Daubert <\/i><\/span>is inapplicable to medical malpractice cases. Part III offers possible explanations for Daubert<\/i><\/span>-free zones and argues that a Daubert <\/i><\/span>framework is preferable for each party who perpetuates the zones. Part IV recommends that state-court judges apply Daubert<\/i><\/span>\u2014rather than industry custom\u2014when determining the standard of care in the medical mal-practice context. Finally, the Appendix contains a comprehensive fifty-state survey of the application of Daubert <\/i><\/span>to experts in medical malpractice cases.<\/p>\n

Continue Reading \u201cTrust Me, I\u2019m a Doctor\u201d: Medical Malpractice as a <\/a><\/strong><\/em>D<\/a><\/strong>aubert<\/a><\/strong>-Free Zone<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Note fills a gap in legal scholarship by being the first to undertake a comprehensive, fifty-state analysis of Daubert\u2019s application to medical malpractice litigation. Most of the recent legal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1479,"featured_media":0,"parent":1867,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-1894","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1479"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1894"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1956,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1894\/revisions\/1956"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}