Daniele v Pain Mgt. Ctr. of Long Is., 2019 NY Slip Op 00093 (2d Dept. 2019)
” The Supreme Court also should not have allowed the plaintiff’s experts, Jason Brajer and Paul Edelson, to testify as expert witnesses in emergency medicine. “[W]here a physician opines outside his or her area of specialization, a foundation must be laid tending to support the reliability of the opinion rendered” (Mustello v Berg, 44 AD3d 1018, 1019; see Behar v Coren, 21 AD3d 1045, 1046-1047). Whether a particular witness is qualified to testify as an expert is ordinarily a discretionary determination (see de Hernandez v Lutheran Med. Ctr., 46 AD3d 517, 517), which will not be disturbed in the absence of a serious mistake, an error of law, or an improvident exercise of discretion (see id. at 517-518). Brajer was board-certified in anesthesiology and pain management. He did not testify that he had training in emergency medicine, and did not adequately explain how he was familiar with the standard of care in emergency medicine based upon his prior experience of being called to the emergency room to prepare patients for surgery, or evaluating urgent back pain (see Galluccio v Grossman, 161 AD3d 1049, 1052; cf. Ocasio-Gary v Lawrence Hosp., 69 AD3d 403, 405). Edelson, a pediatrician, had minimal experience in emergency medicine. More importantly, that experience, which consisted of moonlighting at a hospital for five hours per week in the late 1970s and early 1980s, was simply too remote in time to qualify him to testify as an expert in emergency medicine as of September 2010, the time of the treatment at issue in this case. Edelson otherwise failed to demonstrate that he possessed the specialized knowledge, training, or education that would have qualified him as an expert in this area “
