By Alex Stein
Whether a medical publication – a book or an article – can be used in court as evidence for its truth is determined by the “learned treatise” exception to the hearsay rule. This exception provides that a court can admit into evidence an excerpt from a treatise or periodical when it “is called to the attention of an expert witness on cross-examination or relied on by the expert on direct examination” and when “the publication is established as a reliable authority by the expert’s admission or testimony, by another expert’s testimony, or by judicial notice.” Federal Rule of Evidence 803(18) and its state equivalents.
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has recently narrowed this exception. Read More