Key Takeaway
Court allows cross-examination of plaintiff's expert about 30-year-old suspension from chiropractic school, ruling past misconduct relevant to credibility when witness claims expertise.
Expert Credibility Under Attack: When Past Misconduct Becomes Fair Game
Expert witnesses play a crucial role in personal injury litigation, often providing the technical foundation that can make or break a case. However, as this First Department decision demonstrates, an expert’s credibility can become vulnerable when their past professional conduct comes under scrutiny. The case illustrates an important principle: when experts claim specific qualifications as the basis for their testimony, opposing counsel may be permitted to explore relevant aspects of their professional history — even incidents that occurred decades earlier.
This ruling has particular significance for cases involving biomechanical evidence and other technical expert testimony, where the foundation of an expert’s qualifications directly impacts the weight their opinions carry with a jury.
Jason Tenenbaum’s Analysis:
Montas v Abouel-Ela, 2017 NY Slip Op 07413 (1st Dept. 2017)
“Plaintiff has not demonstrated conduct by defendant’s counsel that would warrant reversal. Defendant’s counsel was properly permitted to cross-examine plaintiff’s expert rebuttal witness about the circumstances surrounding his suspension from chiropractic school for falsely reporting that he had seen patients, a matter relevant to his credibility (see generally Badr v Hogan, 75 NY2d 629, 634 ; Spanier v New York City Tr. Auth., 222 AD2d 219, 220 ). Although the conduct was 30 years ago, the witness opened the door to its relevancy by claiming that his expert knowledge of biomechanics came, in part, from his training as a chiropractor.”
Unfortunately, this case suggests that we look at the quality of the defense experts who testify. In their former lives, many a defense expert well..somethings are better left unsaid.
Key Takeaway
The court’s decision reinforces that expert witnesses cannot selectively highlight their qualifications while shielding related aspects of their professional history from examination. When an expert claims specific training or education as the foundation for their expertise, they effectively open the door to cross-examination about relevant incidents from that same background — regardless of how long ago they occurred. This principle applies equally to expert testimony foundations across various medical and technical disciplines.
