{"id":8227,"date":"2022-03-29T14:46:05","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T18:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/360mediations.com\/en\/?p=8227"},"modified":"2022-03-29T14:46:09","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T18:46:09","slug":"a-civil-litigant-cannot-be-their-own-medical-expert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mail.360mediations.com\/en\/a-civil-litigant-cannot-be-their-own-medical-expert\/","title":{"rendered":"A Civil Litigant Cannot Be their own Medical Expert"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Plaintiff in this case wanted to be his own medical expert and rely on his own reports during a summary judgment motion in a medical malpractice lawsuit alleging that the defendant doctors were negligent in failing to diagnose his Lyme Disease on a timely basis, or at all.<\/p>\n

The defendant doctors asked the court to decide whether it was proper for the Plaintiff to be qualified as an expert, and to be able to rely upon his own medical opinion, notwithstanding his medical degree.<\/p>\n

The court put the question on the motion as follows: is the Plaintiff \u201cable and willing to carry out the \u2018duty to the court to give fair, objective and non-partisan opinion evidence?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Plaintiff\u2019s position was that he was able and willing to fulfil the duty to the court to be fair and objective, and pointed out that the substantive contents of his reports were presented in a balanced manner, coming mostly from reference materials spanning a number of decades.\u00a0 The Plaintiff further submitted that to the extent bias may be present, it should go to weight, not his qualification as an expert.<\/p>\n

The court acknowledged that the threshold to qualify an expert is not a high one, and it would be very rare to disqualify an expert, but in the circumstances, the Plaintiff had to be disqualified because:<\/p>\n