Our personal injury law firm was not involved in the case described.
A woman who was eight months pregnant lost consciousness while driving to work in her truck. She rear ended one car and then hit a parked car. She was traveling at over 30 miles per hour when her truck crashed into the parked car. The car was demolished and its occupant was injured.
The woman asserted the affirmative defense of sudden illness. A driver who is suddenly stricken by an unforeseen loss of consciousness, and is unable to control the vehicle, is not negligent. [1] However, the testimony of the pregnant woman’s expert witnesses was excluded by the trial court because her attorney’s failed to properly disclose the witnesses in discovery and as required by the case schedule and pre-trial court orders.
Local court rules require a party to identify the witness’s name, address, and phone number, along with a brief description of relevant knowledge for lay witnesses or a brief description of qualifications and a summary of opinion for experts. There is no dispute that the defendant did not include phone numbers for her experts, and did not provide a brief description of their relevant knowledge. Nor did she provide a summary of expert qualifications and opinion.
Her attorneys argued that the experts were disclosed in medical records. The trial court ruled that “the court rule does not contemplate that a party needs to comb through medical records to determine what witness is going to be called, it would simply be too expensive and too timely to expect a party to do that.” The trial court also noted that the medical records do not indicate that her experts would have been able to testify to a reasonable degree of medical certainty.
A trial court does not abuse its discretion not abuse its discretion by excluding a defense witness not disclosed under court rules and in the absence of good cause.[2] Therefore the exclusion of the experts from testifying was upheld by the Washington Court of Appeals.[3]
[1] Kaiser v. Suburban Transp. Sys., 65 Wn.2d 461, 466, 398 P.2d 14 (1965), amended by 401 P.2d 350 (1965).
[2] Lancaster v. Perry, 127 Wn. App. 826, 830, 113 P.3d 1 (2005).
[3] Arero v. Bazley, No. 64123-9-I (UNPUBLISHED OPINION FILED: October 25, 2010).