Preston v. Amadei – 8/27/2015

September 11, 2015

Arizona Court of Appeals Division One holds that medical standard of care experts who practice in a subspecialty are not qualified experts in the more general specialty.

Preston v. Amadei (8/27/2015):  Arizona Court of Appeals Division One holds that medical standard of care experts who practice in a subspecialty are not qualified experts in the more general specialty.

When hospitalized for injuries sustained in an auto collision, Jean Preston passed away due to her longstanding but unrelated heart issues.  Her family sued the treating physician, Dr. Michael Amadei, for negligence.  Dr. Amadei was a board certified specialist in internal medicine.  The Preston family engaged a standard-of-care expert who is board certified in both internal medicine and cardiology, but spends most of his time practicing cardiology.  Dr. Amadei sought to have the expert testimony excluded under A.R.S. § 12-2604, which requires experts to have devoted “a majority of the person’s professional time” to practicing “in the same specialty” as the defendant.  The trial court excluded the expert testimony and denied a request to allow the Preston family to engage a different expert.

On appeal, the Court of Appeals upheld the exclusion of the expert but reversed the decision to bar a replacement expert.  Although cardiology is a subspecialty of internal medicine and relevant to the case because the patient died of cardiac problems, the statute requires practice in the same specialty.  If the expert spent the bulk of his time in a subspecialty, he is not qualified to testify to the standard of care for a doctor with less training who practices in a general specialty.

Although the expert was excluded, the plaintiffs should have been allowed to substitute a different expert pursuant to A.R.S. § 12-2603, which states that “the court shall allow any party a reasonable time to cure” the problem of an unqualified expert.  Dr. Amadei knew about the expert’s practice specialty before the close of discovery, but waited until after discovery closed to challenge the expert, and even deposed the expert.  Under such circumstances, the statute requires that the plaintiff be given an opportunity to substitute another expert.

Judge Brown authored the opinion, which Judges Portley and Gemmill joined.