In a wrongful death suit against health care providers accused of causing fatal bleeding into a woman’s brain tissue, a lower court’s decision to exclude a plaintiff’s expert witness was “too harsh a punishment,” a state appellate court has ruled.
In a Feb. 21 opinion, the Tennessee Court of Appeals vacated and remanded a trial court’s order granting summary judgment to West Tennessee Medical Group and Jackson Radiology Associates in a case filed by Shirley Buckley after her daughter died from hemorrhaging in the brain. Judge Kenny Armstrong said that the court’s exclusion of her expert testimony was not justified despite the plaintiff failing to provide an expert testimony within the discovery schedule.