A doctor is only partially qualified to serve as an expert in a negligence case concerning a device implanted into a patient, a judge determined as he granted in part and denied in part a motion to exclude the expert's opinions.
U.S. District Judge Tom Barber ruled on Gladys E. Katsiafas' case in the Middle District of Florida's Fort Myers Division on April 9.
She sued shortly after she was implanted with the product in question, Avaulta Solo Anterior Synthetic Support System, which defendant C.R. Bard, Inc. manufactured. She had the Avaulta removed shortly after, and sued six years before undergoing a second surgery. Before the case was transferred to the Middle District of Florida, Katsiafas first filed in multi-district litigation (MDL) ongoing in the Southern District of West Virginia, where Dr. Lennox Hoyte was deemed an adequate expert witness. Now, the defendants want the court to remove Hoyte's opinions, which Judge Barber granted in part and denied in part.
While the court ruled that Hoyte is qualified to offer opinions concerning biomechanics and related evaluations, he wasn't deemed fit in giving his opinion concerning C.R. Bard's promotion for the Avaulta device, "or the purpose of FDA labeling requirements and the ways in which defendant allegedly failed to satisfy those requirements," according to the ruling.
Whether Hoyte could speak to the product warnings, the court adopted another court's decision holding that a physician can't give his opinion on causation without more knowledge of product warnings.