Like the saying about lawyer jokes. Lawyers don’t think they’re funny, and non-lawyers don’t think they’re jokes.

I don’t imagine the dry cleaner thought that was funny. And as a doctor I’m not surprised to see it.

But there’s always other targets for the trial bar.

They can try for the fifty million for bad dry cleaning.

No, I claimed this statement was rank speculation. Which it is.

Clearly it is not.

I never claimed it was ALL about the medical records. But I would think those would be the starting point and I have no idea how you can condemn a jury’s decision when you’ve never even seen the records. Every lawyer who does this that I know sends the records off to a consulting expert on every case before they do anything else.

Decisions are made on things other than those facts, as I asserted, and you confirmed this. Therefore it is not “rank speculation” that jurors make decisions based on things other than the objective evidence.

BTW, I wasn’t asserting in my illustration that the experts’ testimony should be exlcuded, but that their appearance, manner of dress, dialect, ethnic appearance, etc. could be.

They need to see the experts to establish the standard of care. Or if, for example, a physician altered the records and they have to prove it. The experts’ opinions absolutely are evidence.

They need to see the plaintiffs and defendants so that they can establish the damages and weigh the parties’ credibility. The medical records won’t tell you the extent of the damages. And, the medical records don’t always tell everything. I’m sure you’ve called a colleague to fill in the blanks from the medical records before, correct?

http://www.ins.state.ny.us/acrobat/medmal2.pdf

“D. Regulatory Environment in New York
All carriers agreed that there is a significant amount of medical malpractice insurance regulation in New York as compared with other states. While some felt that this regulation had stabilized the marketplace over the last ten years, others felt that it has also prevented carriers from responding to marketplace demands for innovative insurance programs. Several carriers advised that they had been approached by managed care entities for insurance, but because of the Insurance Department’s restrictions on premiums, limits of liability, and coverage, they were unable to prevent the loss of that business to the surplus lines market.
They felt that the Insurance Department should be more responsive to new insurance
products and should give more weight to an insurer’s underwriting judgment in setting rates for these products.
The Insurance Department will undertake a review of its procedures with regard to this
issue.”

Cross examine your witnesses in front of a court reporter and give the transcript to the jury. Why not? Any impact that those features that are removed would have is simple my speculation.