Sample Cross-Examination—Qualifications of West Palm Beach car accident Expert
Attorney: Doctor, your specialty for the past 25 years has been in internal medicine?
Witness: Yes, sir.
Attorney: All of your residency training was in internal medicine?
Witness: Yes, sir.
Attorney: All of your continuing medical training and education for the past 25 years has been in internal medicine?
Witness: Yes, sir.
Attorney: Your practice has been limited to seeing patients in your office and admitting them to the hospital for various diseases and conditions covered by internal medicine?
Witness: Yes, sir.
Attorney: You do not perform what is known as general surgery, do you?
Witness: No, I do not.
Attorney: You have not, in the past 25 years, performed what is known as general surgery, have you?
Witness: No, I have not, although I have performed minor surgery in my office.
Attorney: But you are talking about removing warts or lancing boils or removing splinters, that kind of thing?
Witness: Those are some of the things I have done.
Attorney: But you don’t perform those minor procedures under general anesthesia in a hospital operating room, do you?
Witness: No, I do not.
Attorney: And when you have a potential surgical issue with a patient, you call in a surgeon to address the issue and advise you on it, don’t you?
Witness: Yes, I do.
Attorney: You do that because you are not a surgeon and do not practice surgery, do you?
Witness: That is correct.
Attorney: You are not board certified in general surgery, are you?
Witness: No sir, only internal medicine.
Attorney: You do understand that what is involved in this case is a general surgery issue?
Witness: Yes, sir. However, I do feel I am qualified to address that particular issue in this case because of my medical degree and medical background and training.
Attorney: Your Honor. We move to strike the last sentence of his answer as not responsive to the question and ask that the jury be instructed to disregard it.
Court: Motion sustained. Ladies and Gentlemen, you are instructed to disregard the witness’s last statement.
In the closing argument, you can argue that the opposing counsel’s West Palm Beach car accident Expert witness is not properly qualified to testify about what a surgeon should or should not do, because the witness is not a surgeon and never has been a surgeon. In this way, you can effectively attack the credentials of the West Palm Beach car accident Expert witness who will be testifying in the case at hand.
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