Medical Jurisprudence, Forensic medicine and Toxicology. Vol. 1Witthaus, R. A. (Rudolph August)
Science
Medical Jurisprudence, Forensic medicine and Toxicology. Vol. 1
Witthaus, R. A. (Rudolph August)
Medical jurisprudence; Poisons; Toxicology
A somewhat different question has arisen in the case of a witness who,
like a family physician or attending physician, has learned facts
and has been paid for his attendance, or who exacts payment for his
attendance, as a physician from his patient, and this question is;
when such a professional man has been called upon to testify to the
information he thus attained, whether he can be asked for, and required
to give, opinions based on those facts? Necessarily, having learned the
facts by observation, such as the appearance, symptoms, and actions of
the patient, he is, when testifying as to these matters, nothing more
or less than an ordinary witness, because he is testifying to matters
of observation. As to these matters public policy requires, except so
far as it has been modified, or rather extended, by our statutes which
forbid testimony as to privileged communications, that he must testify,
the same as any other witness. But suppose that, having so testified to
the facts, he is asked to give his opinion; for example, in an insanity
case, whether the symptoms that he found in his patient led him to the
belief as a professional man of experience and skill that his patient
was sane or insane. The question is, Can he be compelled to give that
opinion, if he chooses to decline to give it without the promise or
assurance of further compensation than the mere _per diem_ fee and
mileage of an ordinary witness? The best authority is to the effect
that he must so testify, the reasoning of the court being that his
opinion is only a part of what he derived from his original relation of
physician to his patient. Wright _v._ The People, 112 Ill., 540; same
case, 33 Alb. L. J., 79.
_Same Rule in Civil and Criminal Cases._—The rule is the same whether
the professional man is called to testify as an expert in civil or
criminal cases. In either one he is not obliged to give an opinion as
such, independent of a personal knowledge of the facts in the case,
without being paid or assured reasonable compensation therefor. His
proper course of conduct is, when he has obeyed the subpœna and is in
the presence of the court and has been sworn, and the questions put
by counsel disclose that the object of his examination is to elicit
from him an opinion, to state to the court that he has not been paid
any other compensation than that of an ordinary witness, and that he
respectfully declines to give an opinion in the case as an expert,
without compensation proportionate to the value of his opinion.[182]
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