SANTOS WRESTLING ENTERPRISES, INC., etc., et al., Appellants,
v.
Juana PEREZ and Gustavo Perez, Her Husband, Appellees.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
Bradford, Williams, McKay, Kimbrell, Hamann & Jennings and Thomas E. Scott, Miami, for appellants.
Horton, Perse & Ginsberg and Edward A. Perse, Ratiner & Glinn, Miami, for appellees.
Before KEHOE and SCHWARTZ, JJ., and CHARLES CARROLL (Ret.), Associate Judge.
KEHOE, Judge.
Appellants, defendants below, bring this appeal from an adverse final judgment in a personal injury action. We reverse.
*686 Appellants in their first point on appeal contend that the trial court erred in excluding the opinion testimony of their expert concerning the etiology of appellee Juana Perez's medical condition offered by hypothetical questions and by an independent review of her medical records, including depositions of the treating physicians.
The basis of the trial court's exclusion of appellants' expert witness's testimony, a medical doctor, was that he had not treated appellee Juana Perez, and hence there was no proper predicate. This presents the question of whether an expert may render an opinion on medical causation by way of hypothetical question or independent review of the evidence without treating the patient. In our opinion, an expert may appropriately render such an opinion. Brevard County v. Apel,
In this case, the record shows that the hypothetical question which would have formed the basis of appellants' expert witness's opinion comported with the evidence and tracked the criteria for the basis of such an opinion. See, e.g., Christiansen v. State,
Reversed and remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
