Trial Court Addresses Use of Hearsay Evidence During a Medical Malpractice Trial

In the case of Koesterer v. Thomas Jeffersons Univ. Hosp., Feb. Term 2021, No. 01051 (C.P. Phila. Co. Feb. 13, 2025 Bright, J.), the trial court issued a Rule 1925 Opinion in a medical malpractice case and held, in part, that a judgment in favor of the Plaintiff should be affirmed given that the medical malpractice Defendant did not suffer any prejudice to the point of warranting a new trial where the Plaintiff’s attorney was permitted to briefly cross-examine a Defendant physician with the expert opinions of the Plaintiff’s non-testifying expert in violation of the hearsay rule.

According to the Opinion, the Plaintiff sued the medical Defendants for professional liability after the Plaintiff’s mother died allegedly as a result of a pulmonary embolism after hip surgery.

At trial, the Plaintiff’s attorney was permitted, over the Defendants’ hearsay objection, to cross-examine a Defendant doctor and the Defendant doctor’s expert with the expert opinions issued by one of the Plaintiff’s non-testifying expert.

In this regard, the trial court pointed out that, immediately before the questioning at issue, the Defendant physician testified that there was a disagreement in the field of medicine regarding the issues raised in the non-testifying expert’s opinion.

Accordingly, the court stated that, while the questioning from the Plaintiff’s attorney briefly drew in an outside hearsay opinion from a non-testifying expert, the trial court found that it was impossible to conclude that the momentary reference would have had an significant impact on the jury’s decision. 

The court also noted that this was essentially the only reference to the opinions of the Plaintiff’s non-testifying expert at trial. Accordingly, in this Rule 1925 Opinion, the trial court asserted that it did not err or abuse its discretion in denying the medical Defendants’ request for a new trial based upon the alleged prejudice in this regard.

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Source: The Legal Intelligencer Common Pleas Case Alert, www.Law.com (April 30, 2025).