Frank Special, Petitioners v. West Boca Medical Center, et — Lewis, J., Concurring in Part and Dissenting…

Summary

Justice Lewis concurred in the adoption of a harmless-error standard placing the burden on the beneficiary of the error to show no reasonable possibility that it affected the verdict, and concluded that excluding evidence concerning the unusually high rate of amniotic-fluid-embolus diagnoses required a new trial. He would also have held that the trial court abused its discretion by excluding further evidence of alleged efforts to intimidate the medical examiner. Justice Pariente, concurring in part and dissenting in part, would apply a more-likely-than-not civil harmless-error standard and would reject the witness-tampering claim on the existing record; Justice Polston, dissenting, would find the AFE cross-examination error harmless and affirm the exclusion of the alleged intimidation evidence.