It is often the approach of medical malpractice insurance companies and their lawyers to fight them with little to no negotiation and vigorous defense.
A common defense tactic in big medical malpractice cases is to name multiple doctors to testify on the same subject as an expert. Why do this? Two reasons, one, if one doctor testifies bad in a deposition then the defense will dis-endorse that doctor and stick with the other doctor. Second , under Missouri Rules the Plaintiff has to pay the defense doctors for their time, that amount is usually $400-$700 per hour or even more. Thus it puts financial strain on the opposing party to force them to spend more money and put more risk on the table. Additionally, lawyers in the medical malpractice profession all know that it is difficult to get a doctor to testify against another doctor, but easy to find doctors lining up to defense other doctors.
How to counteract this tactic? Simple, first, if one of the experts does poorly in their deposition make sure that you videotaped it, then endorse that expert as one of your own and play the good parts of the deposition at trial.
Second, file a motion for protective order limiting the defense to only one medical expert on particular issue. This motion should almost always be granted in one form or the other. Usually the Judge limits them to one expert and they have to choose, or some judges will allow the duplicate experts to remain but require the defense to pay the expenses associated with the second deposition and then force them to choose one or other other expert for trial.
Missouri Rule 56.01(c) states:
"Upon motion by a party or by the person from whom discovery is sought, and for good cause shown, the court may make any order which justice requires to protect a party or person from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense..."
Defendant's endorsement of two similar experts who will testify to the same thing is duplicative and cumulative. Plaintiff will be caused to incur undue burden and expense in deposing both witnesses, and will suffer prejudice.
It is proper to exclude cumulative evidence. Payne v. Cornhusker Motor Lines, Inc., 177 S.W.3d 820, 840 (Mo.App. E.D. 2005).
Relevancy is the key criterion for admission of evidence, and the court must find evidence both logically and legally relevant in order to admit it. Olinger v. General Heating & Cooling Co., 896 S.W.2d 43, 48 (Mo.App. W.D.1994). "Evidence is 'logically relevant' if such evidence tends to make the existence of any material fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence." State v. Sladek, 835 S.W.2d 308, 314 (Mo. banc 1992) (Thomas, J., concurring). But the inquiry does not end with logical relevance. Evidence must also be legally relevant to be admitted. Id. To determine legal relevance, the court must weigh the probative value, or usefulness, of the evidence against its costs, specifically the dangers of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, undue delay, misleading the jury, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence. Id. The trial court must measure the usefulness of the evidence against its cost, and if the cost outweighs the usefulness, then the evidence is not legally relevant, and the court should exclude it.
Kroeger-Eberhart v. Eberhart, 254 S.W.3d 38, 43 (Mo.App. E.D. 2007).
Another example is Grab ex rel. Grab v. Dillon, 103 S.W.3d 228, (Mo.App. E.D. 2003), in which the plaintiff in a medical malpractice action sought to introduce a conclusion from a pathologist, which "came to the same conclusion as five other pathologists who reviewed the slides." The trial court excluded the pathologist's opinion because "[i]t is typically considered proper to exclude cumulative evidence." The appellate court affirmed the exclusion of the pathologist's opinion.