Can a plaintiff rely solely on the standard of care for a medical doctor?

Defendant relies primarily on Chadock v. Cohn (1979) 96 Cal.App.3d 205, 215, a medical malpractice case against a defendant physician and surgeon arising from his care and treatment of a leg and foot injury. The lower court granted a nonsuit motion at the end of plaintiff's case solely on the ground that, as a matter of law, her proffered expert, a podiatrist, could not testify to the standard of care for a medical doctor. The lower court indicated that only a physician or surgeon could testify as an expert in the area and then said to the plaintiff, " 'Your man doesn't meet that standard, no matter how qualified he might be.' " (Id. at p. 214, italics added.) This ruling was made despite a 402 hearing where the proffered podiatrist testified to "an inordinate background of education, knowledge, training and experience in the care and treatment of foot injuries," including having been licensed for six years in a surgery practice. (Id. at p. 209.) The appellate court reversed because the test for admissibility of the expert's testimony was simply whether the witness met the standards under section 720; there was no requirement as a matter of law that a witness be a medical doctor or possess the same professional degrees or certifications held by the defendant surgeon. And the error in excluding the proffered expert based solely on the fact that he was not a medical doctor was prejudicial because it prevented plaintiff from presenting her case for a verdict. (See id. at pp. 209, 214-215.)

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In this case, the trial court did allow Rutter, who is not a medical doctor, to testify about defendant's treatment and medication, his past interactions with defendant, and Rutter's diagnosis of defendant. We cannot say the trial court's exclusion of Rutter's testimony about video evidence was an abuse of discretion in light of Rutter's own concession that he had no professional experience in forensic psychology and diagnosing someone based on a video recording. (See People v. Williams, supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 1136.)⁷