Domby v. Moritz, No. D050165 (Cal. Ct. App. Mar. 5, 2008)

The California Court of Appeal affirmed a lower court's summary judgment granted in favor of a hospitalist in a medical malpractice action brought against him by the husband of a patient who died from cardiac failure. In the course of the proceedings, the hospitalist relied on an expert who stated that the hospitalist acted within the standard of care of his specialty and did not cause the patient's death by relying on cardiologists to treat the patient's cardiac condition and on the ICU staff to contact the cardiologists in the event the patient's condition changed. The plaintiff offered testimony from his own expert who claimed the hospitalist should have insured that the cardiologists placed an intravenous pacemaker in the patient and that failure to do this caused the patient's death. The expert also opined that lack of communication between the hospitalist and cardiologists resulted in the intravenous pacemaker not being used. The court observed that the expert used by the husband assumed facts (the cause of death and the impact the hospitalist's communications might have had) and from those facts concluded a breach of duty and causation. Because there was no evidence in the record which supported these assumptions, it was found that the expert's opinions would not be of assistance to the trier of fact because they were entirely speculative. Thus, the trial court had properly sustained the hospitalist's objection to the expert's testimony and granted summary judgment.