Levetta Tunstall v. Dawn Manning, 124 N.E.3d 1193

Dawn Manning was rear-ended, later treated by Dr. Stephen Paschall who diagnosed permanent whole-body impairment (28%) and attributed it to the accident.
Paschall’s deposition revealed his medical license had previously been placed on probation; he refused to testify about the reasons for discipline.
Trial court excluded evidence both that Paschall’s license had been on probation and the reasons for his discipline; license was in good standing at trial.
Jury heard only Paschall for plaintiff and two contrary defense experts; jury awarded $1.3 million to Manning.
Defendant (Tunstall) appealed arguing exclusion of Paschall’s licensure/probation history and reasons for discipline was reversible error.
Supreme Court held evidence of licensure status and reasons for discipline may be admissible to impeach an expert, reversed exclusion of probation fact (harmless error), and affirmed exclusion of reasons for discipline under Evid. R. 608(b) and 609.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Manning)	Defendant's Argument (Tunstall)	Held
Admissibility of evidence that expert's professional license was once on probation	Probation evidence is irrelevant because license was in good standing at trial and prejudicial	Probation is relevant impeachment showing on credibility; jury should hear it	Court: Probation fact is admissible; trial court abused discretion excluding it, but error was harmless
Admissibility of the reasons underlying prior professional discipline	Reasons are relevant to credibility and should be admissible	Reasons probe motive/credibility and are relevant impeachment	Court: Reasons are generally admissible in principle but here exclusion was proper because specific reasons were barred by Evid. R. 608(b) and misdemeanor convictions by Evid. R. 609
Standard of review for exclusion of impeachment evidence	—	—	Court: legal questions reviewed de novo; discretionary rulings reviewed for abuse of discretion
Harmless-error analysis of excluded probation evidence	Exclusion was prejudicial and requires reversal	Exclusion was harmless given extensive other impeachment and lay testimony supporting damages	Court: Exclusion was harmless given strong impeachment efforts at trial and substantial lay testimony of permanent injury; verdict affirmed

Fridono v. Chuman, 747 N.E.2d 610 (Ind. Ct. App. 2001) (medical-staff privilege modifications admissible to impeach; peer-review reasons statutorily protected)
Linton v. Davis, 887 N.E.2d 960 (Ind. Ct. App. 2008) (held licensure status admissible but misunderstood scope of inadmissibility of reasons)
Bennett v. Richmond, 960 N.E.2d 782 (Ind. 2012) (expert credibility and cross-examination principles)
Rohr v. State, 866 N.E.2d 242 (Ind. 2007) (harmless-error standard for excluded evidence)