Action Step A physician should discuss fee issues with counsel well before the deposition. Physicians who are represented by a lawyer should discuss the fee issue with their own lawyer. A physician who is a retained expert should discuss fees with the hiring lawyer. Physicians who are not represented by counsel or hired as an expert should discuss fees with the lawyer who makes the deposition request. The court reporter needs to take down the testimony.
It is difficult for the reporter to record nonverbal responses or two people talking at once. Lawyers often start depositions by going through the ground rules, which are typically stated as follows:.
Physicians who repeatedly fail to follow the ground rules do not make good witnesses. Action Step Physicians should strive to follow the ground rules for depositions so that their testimony can be taken down clearly and accurately.
Physicians often get in trouble when they guess or speculate in response to deposition questions. This commonly occurs when a physician is asked whether he or she remembers a specific fact concerning the medical care that was provided to the patient. It is a mistake to guess or speculate based on what a physician thinks he or she may have done.
Another common example is when a physician testifies concerning treatment that was provided by another physician or is otherwise outside the personal knowledge of the deponent. Action Step Physicians should not guess or speculate when answering questions in a deposition. They should stick to their own personal knowledge or, when asked for opinion testimony, testify only as to the opinions they have formed to a reasonable degree of medical certainty. Deposition questions should be answered directly and concisely.
Physicians can create problems when they wander or ramble into areas beyond the question that was asked. Invariably, when physicians volunteer information that is not directly asked, it leads to even more questions, and they often end up being needlessly painted into a corner.
Action Step Physicians must answer deposition questions truthfully, but they should strive to keep their answers direct and to the point.
They should avoid volunteering information that is not specifically requested by the deposing lawyer. See Common Legal Terms, at adlergiersch.
This confusion was sparked by a Court of Appeals ruling that a treating chiropractor was not entitled to doctor-level fees for time spent in responding to discovery such as a deposition, but only the statutory witness fee. The Superior Court Civil Rule 26 b was subsequently amended to reverse this appellate court decision. Superior Court Civil Rule 26 b 7 states in relevant part:. The party seeking discovery from a treating health care provider shall pay a reasonable fee for the reasonable time spent in responding to the discovery.
This is the most comprehensive study ever conducted on expert witness fees. There was significant variation in fees amongst different areas of expertise. Medical expert witnesses are on average better compensated than non-medical expert witnesses.
Surprisingly, less experienced experts generally charge more than experienced experts. Hartford now takes the position that Dr. Hartford argues that Dr. Taco Bell Corp. Coleman v. Dydula, F. Neither party has provided substantial information regarding the factors set forth in Coleman.
The Court expresses no opinion as to what the reasonable hourly rate would be for Dr.
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