law rights & civil resource

posted by admin on Jun 5

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1 IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS

LORAIN COUNTY, OHIO

2

3 TLG, Minor *

by her parent and next

4 friend, D K. G, * Case No.

P

5 *

6 vs. * Judge Bettloski

7 M F. S, M.D., *

et al

8 Defendant *

9 * * * * *

10 Telephonic deposition of M V.

11 J, M.D., taken on behalf of the P,

12 before S M. Wright, a Notary Public in and for

13 the State of Maryland, County of Baltimore, at 200 East

14 Lexington Street, Suite 1700, Baltimore, Maryland

15 21202, at 3:40 p.m., September 6, 2001.

16 * * * * *

APPEARANCES:

17

Z.G, Esquire (via telephone)

18 On behalf of P

19 J W. J, Esquire

On behalf of Defendants,

20 Russell, Berkebile & Associates

21 Reported By: S M. Wright

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1 APPEARANCES: (Cont’d)

2

G.R, Esquire (via telephone)

3 On behalf of Defendant,

Dr. P.H

4

J.K, Esquire (via telephone)

5 On behalf of Defendant,

Dr. M F. S

6

7 W.F, Esquire (via telephone)

On behalf of Defendant,

8 Community Health Partners Hospital

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1 * * * * *

2 MV. J, M.D.,

3 called as a witness and having been duly sworn,

4 testified as follows:

5 EXAMINATION BY MR. G:

6 Q Doctor, can you give us your name and

7 address for the record, please?

8 A It’s Dr. M V. J –

9 J. And my work address is 707 North

10 Broadway, Baltimore, Maryland 21205.

11 Q Doctor, as you know, my name is Z

12 G. I’m one of the attorneys for the p

13 in this case. I’m going to be asking you a series of

14 questions. If at any time you do not understand one of

15 my questions, please tell me so, or ask me to rephrase

16 it. If you do answer, though, I’ll assume you

17 understood the question, and I’ll hold you to your

18 answer. Do you understand?

19 A Okay.

20 Q Great. Do you have a copy of your

21 curriculum vitae in front of you?

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1 A Yes.

2 Q We’ll mark that a Plaintiff’s Exhibit

3 Number 1 at the end of the deposition.

4 Doctor, can you either circle or indicate

5 with a check mark on there any articles that you’ve

6 written, or chapters or abstracts, what have you, that

7 pertain to your opinions in this case?

8 A Okay.

9 MR. J: That will take awhile.

10 There’s so many.

11 MR. G: You wish.

12 MR. J: I meant looking at it.

13 A Okay. I’ll take a few minutes. You want

14 to take a few minutes now, or –

15 Q Whatever you’d like, that’s fine with me.

16 MR. J: Yeah, go ahead and do it.

17 A Okay. Okay.

18 MR. J: Z, just so you know, and

19 everybody else, he just circled article 51 on page 26

20 of his CV.

21 MR. G: Okay.

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1 A And 58 on twenty — page 26. And then I

2 guess 61, page 27. And then 63 on page 27. And 72 on

3 page 27.

4 MR. J: Pardon me?

5 THE WITNESS: Seventy-two.

6 MR. J: Okay.

7 A And those are the — those are the ones

8 that are relevant.

9 Q Great. Do you have a copy of your report,

10 the December 27th report, in front of you?

11 A Let’s see. Yeah.

12 Q Can you list for me the material you

13 reviewed in connection with this case before you wrote

14 your report?

15 A Okay. Here I have it, yeah. I looked at

16 the records from Community Health Partners, including

17 the newborn and maternal records. I looked at the

18 Metro Health Medical records, including progress notes,

19 labs, radiology and special diagnostics. Outpatient

20 records from Metro Health Center. I looked at the

21 depositions of both parents, deposition of Dr. S,

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1 deposition of Dr. H, deposition of Dr. P. I

2 looked at brain images. I looked at ultrasound from

3 September 15th. I looked at MRI scan from September

4 18th. I looked at ultrasound from September 21st, an

5 ultrasound from September 27th. I looked at ultrasound

6 from October 10th. I looked at a CT scan from March

7 11th, 1999. The other films are all 1998.

8 Q Okay. Did you look at anything else before

9 you wrote your report of December 27th?

10 A I don’t think so.

11 Q Medical articles? Chapters in textbooks?

12 Medline Search?

13 A The only — I think when I sent the letter,

14 I sent along an abstract from a Volpe article, Annals

15 of Neurology, 1989, January, pages 3 to 11 called

16 “Intraventricular Hemorrhage in the Premature Infant,

17 Current Concepts,” Part I. I also sent along abstracts

18 of an article from Pediatric Research, 1984, January,

19 Volume 18, pages 7 to 11 called “Cerebral Blood Flow

20 and Experimental Intraventricular Hemorrhage” by

21 G-F. G, F

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1 M — M.

2 Q Did you send along any other articles with

3 your report aside from the two you just mentioned?

4 A No.

5 Q Why didn’t you cite those two articles in

6 your report?

7 A I’m not sure.

8 Q Did you review any more than the two

9 articles and just decide to send those two along?

10 A No. I think these were just — these

11 supported my position, so I didn’t review any others.

12 Q Did you discuss these two articles with

13 defense counsel before you sent them to him?

14 MR. J: Objection. Go ahead.

15 A I think — no. I think what the sequence

16 was, I talked about my opinions on the phone, and then

17 I wrote the letter, and then I just — I mean, there

18 are many articles that document the same point, but I

19 just picked these two as examples and sent them along.

20 Q What did you expect defense counsel would

21 do with these two articles?

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1 A I thought they would read them, and that

2 they would see that the words in them corresponded to

3 my opinion that the premature infant is vulnerable to

4 intracranial hemorrhage related to hypotension,

5 especially hypotension related to hypovolemia.

6 For example, the article by

7 G-F documented in animals that five

8 minutes of hemorrhagic hypotension was associated with

9 intracranial hemorrhage. And Volpe indicated in humans

10 that abrupt increases and decreases in cerebral blood

11 flow in the premature are related to intracranial

12 hemorrhage.

13 And since this baby had — was very

14 premature and had a documented episode of bradycardia,

15 these articles supported the position that that episode

16 was probably related to the baby’s brain injury and

17 intracranial hemorrhage.

18 Q Did you write any other letters to defense

19 counsel?

20 A I don’t think so.

21 Q Have you ever passed along medical articles

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1 to defense counsel before?

2 A I’ve passed them along both to plaintiff

3 and defense counsel.

4 Q And when you’ve done such, don’t you have a

5 cover letter, Dear Attorney: Enclosed you’ll find

6 articles you may find helpful?

7 A I faxed these. This was faxed on –

8 actually, it was — looks like these were faxed

9 recently. February 9th, 2001 to Jo E L–

10 L-E-A-C-H, fax number 216-621-8369.

11 Q So that when you told me earlier the

12 articles went along with your report, you were in

13 error, correct?

14 MR. J: Objection. That doesn’t

15 follow at all.

16 A I’m not sure, but –

17 Q Well, is it now your testimony, sir, that

18 you sent the articles along with the December 27th

19 letter, and, in addition to that, faxed them in

20 February 2001?

21 A I don’t know. It looks like — it looks

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1 like these were faxed independently.

2 Q Meaning?

3 A You mean in the same envelope as the

4 letter?

5 Q Did they go in the letter or not? Do you

6 want to change your testimony, or stick with your

7 earlier testimony?

8 MR. J: Objection.

9 A No, I don’t think I’ll do either one. I’ll

10 just tell you what I have that I faxed them on February

11 9th, 2001.

12 Q After the December 27th report, were you

13 provided with any other material to review in

14 connection with this case?

15 A Yeah. I have other — other reports. I

16 have expert reports.

17 MR. J: He’s asking at the time, I

18 think, as opposed to subsequent to your report.

19 MR. G: No.

20 Q Subsequent. After December 27th –

21 MR. J: Okay.