Smith v. Bubak, M.D., et al., No. 10-1587 (8th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff, the personal representative of the estate of Velda Smith, sued defendants for medical malpractice, claiming that defendants negligently failed to transfer Smith to a medical facility where she could have received tissue plasminogen activator("tPA") to treat her stroke. At issue was whether the district court properly excluded evidence of plaintiff's medical expert's testimony and granted summary judgment in favor of defendants. The court affirmed summary judgment and held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the expert's testimony pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 702 where the testimony was predicated on a methodologically flawed and unreliable published medical study ("Zivin Paper").
Court Description: Civil case - torts. District court did not err in excluding plaintiff's medical expert's testimony on the use of the drug tPA to treat strokes as the testimony was based on a paper, the results of which were not sufficiently relevant to allow the medical expert's testimony to be admissible under Rule 702.
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