§ 27-7 Medical Malpractice - Requirement of Expert Testimony

• Library: South Carolina Requests to Charge - Civil (SCBar) (2016 Ed.)

§ 27-7 Medical Malpractice - Requirement of Expert Testimony

Because many malpractice suits involve ailments and treatments outside the realm of ordinary lay knowledge and experience, expert testimony is generally necessary under our law. A witness who has special knowledge, skill, experience, training or education in a particular field, profession or occupation may give his opinion as an expert once that witness has been qualified as [stipulated as] an expert.

The general rule is that expert testimony is required in a malpractice case to show that the defendant failed to conform to the required standard. The question of whether a physician, in making a diagnosis or finding, deviated from the applicable standard of care, either by not employing a particular procedure or by not ordering a particular test, is to be determined by what an ordinary, careful, and prudent physician would have done under the same or similar circumstances. A physician is only required to meet the standard of skill possessed by an ordinary, careful and prudent practitioner in his field under the same or similar circumstances.

There is an exception to the expert testimony requirement in situations where the common knowledge or experience of laymen is extensive enough to recognize or to infer negligence from the facts. Accordingly, in a medical malpractice action, the plaintiff must establish by expert testimony both the required standard of care and the defendant's failure to conform to that standard, unless the subject matter lies within the ambit of common knowledge or experience, so that no special learning is needed to evaluate the defendant's conduct. When expert testimony is the only evidence of proximate cause relied...