Local Standards and Importing an Expert Witness

An Arkansas appellate court has affirmed a directed verdict in favor of a local obstetrician/gynecologist after finding that a New York expert's ignorance about Hot Springs, Ark and the medical services there, prevented him from establishing local standard of care. This brings up two fascinating points.

First, I was immediately struck by the issue that the standards of care actually vary: Shouldn't there be pretty much one standard of care? And one must wonder just what is the difference between medical care standards in Hot Springs, Arkansas and Rochester, New York. I am not criticizing either locale, just wondering why/how that could be/should be different.  

Second, it occurred to me that the plaintiff might have made a critical error in hiring an expert from a (geographically and culturally) distant locale. At Westlaw Round Table Group, one of the expert witness search parameters we often are requested to satisfy is geographical proximity. Choosing where your expert comes from is a critical aspect of the expert selection process, but especially so when determining local standards of care.

In my years working with clients and experts, I have found there are basically two trains of thought when clients feel that geography is important in finding an expert witness. Either they deliberately want an 'out of towner' with some perceived prestige or lack of conflict, or the deliberately want someone local, who might share an accent, or a set of cultural communication traits.

But in cases where local standards of care is the issue, (at least in Hot Springs, Arkansas) apparently local experts are better.

Westlaw Round Table Group has experts in both Rochester, NY and Hot Springs, AR.

The complete analysis of this case can be found here, and was published in the V7/I#4 March 2010 Westlaw Journal Expert and Scientific Evidence.