Key Takeaway
Court reverses personal injury verdict due to attorney's abusive summation and improper cross-examination tactics that denigrated medical experts and witnesses.
Maraviglia v Lokshina, 2012 NY Slip Op 01593 (2d Dept. 2012)
Count the comments here:
(1) Counsel repeatedly denigrated the medical background of the injured plaintiff’s treating physician;
(2) Plaintiff’s treating physician and the plaintiff were “working the system.”
(3) Was the “go-to” doctor in Suffolk County for patients who wished to stop working.
(4) the medical center where this doctor performed certain procedures as a “parking lot,”
(4) By contrast, counsel vouched for the [*2]credibility of the defendants’ expert witness by thanking “God there are people like who are the stop gap.”
(5) Ccounsel persistently questioned the plaintiffs’ expert about an investigation by the Department of Health of “anesthetic mishaps” in the anesthesiology department at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, despite the expert’s testimony that the investigation did not involve his practice, and the defendants’ lack of any evidence to the contrary.
(6) Counsel also commented that the plaintiffs’ expert was “sensitive” about this topic, and stated repeatedly that the plaintiffs’ expert was “out of control.” Further, in questioning the plaintiffs’ expert about a malpractice case that had been brought against him, counsel remarked that the expert had been “afraid to take the witness stand in that case.”
(7) Defendants cross-examined the plaintiffs’ economic expert on collateral issues, including, among other matters, the state of the local Suffolk County economy, the foreclosure rate in that county, and the twelve-year period during which judges in New York State had continued to work without receiving a raise.
This case is a manual of when you stepped over the line. Some things are better left unsaid.
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