Sommers Schwartz Obtains Another Michigan Supreme Court Victory to Help Those Who Suffer Rare Harm Due to Medical Malpractice
Medical malpractice can involve a wide range of negligent acts, errors, and omissions. Similarly, the consequences of medical mistakes can range from common and easily foreseeable to rare or infrequent outcomes and conditions. For cases that fall into the latter category, the victory recently obtained by Sommers Schwartz’s appellate team before the Michigan Supreme Court in Danhoff v. Fahim will make it less likely that medical malpractice victims will be denied justice just because their injuries and losses have not yet been the subject of published scientific studies.
In every Michigan medical malpractice case, a plaintiff must demonstrate the applicable standard of care through admissible, qualified expert medical testimony. Failure to provide such expert opinions or testimony will result in a swift rejection of the plaintiff’s claims well before they reach a jury. At issue in Danhoff was whether such opinions must always be supported by relevant, published, peer-reviewed studies to be admissible.
The trial court found that the lack of scientific literature supporting the plaintiff’s expert testimony rendered that testimony unreliable and inadmissible and accordingly granted the defendant’s motion for summary disposition. The appellate court affirmed the trial court’s decision.
In a 5-2 decision, the Michigan Supreme Court reversed, holding that “While published literature may be an important factor in determining reliability, it is not dispositive, and thus its absence does not require finding that the proposed expert testimony is unreliable and therefore inadmissible.” Instead, “scientific literature is one of the factors that a trial court should consider when determining whether the opinion is reliable.” Like many things in the law, the role of scientific studies in that determination depends on the facts of the case.
“Each case will present unique circumstances for a trial court to determine whether the expert’s opinion is reliable,” the Court noted. “In some cases, a lack of supportive literature may be fatal to a plaintiff’s expert’s reliability. In others, a plaintiff’s expert may demonstrate reliability without supporting literature, especially where a complication is rare and there is a dearth of supportive literature available to support the opinion.”
The Court supported its decision by noting that a strict requirement for published medical studies would effectively preclude any medical malpractice claim involving a rare complication.
“If a lack of supportive medical literature were treated as dispositive when the opinions of a plaintiff’s expert were otherwise reliable, patients who experience complications so rare they have not been studied by the academic community or discussed in peer-reviewed publications would not be able to offer admissible expert testimony when seeking legal recourse for their injuries.”
Instead, because of our appellate team’s efforts, medical malpractice victims now have one less obstacle standing in their way when seeking justice and compensation for their losses. The firm congratulates our talented appellate team on this significant accomplishment on behalf of Michigan medical malpractice victims.
