On October 27, 2022, a three-vehicle collision occurred on Interstate-10 in Phoenix, Arizona. Defendant Eduardo Serrato was operating a tractor trailer when he struck the rear of a Dodge Dart, killing a non-party individual inside the vehicle. The Dodge Dart was pushed across two lanes, and it impacted the tractor trailer containing Plaintiffs Robert Hanifon and Edelmira Encarnacion. Serrato had “nodded off” before the collision, although he had not fallen asleep.
Serrato, a Class-A Commercial Vehicle licensed driver, was employed by Defendant J.B. Hunt, and the tractor trailer he was driving was owned by J.B. Hunt. In addition to Serrato’s involvement in the collisions prior to his employment with J.B. Hunt, Serrato’s employee file noted several incidents that took place leading up to the October 27, 2022, collision.
Plaintiffs intended to have two life care planning experts testify about Plaintiffs’ future medical care—Dr. Caitlin Civiello would testify on Ms. Encarnacion’s and Dr. Pallavi R. Cherukupally on Mr. Hanifon’s.
J.B. Hunt filed motions to strike and exclude portions of the report
and proposed testimony of both experts on substantially identical bases.
Life Care Planning Expert Witnesses
Caitlin E.A. Civiello is an emergency room physician and a certified life care planner. Civiello received her M.D. from the Tufts University School of Medicine. She has extensive experience in life care planning and emergency treatment and pain management, including steroid injections and trigger point injections.
She authored a life care plan that purports to identify the care that Encarnacion will need in the future and the price for that care.
Pallavi R. Cherukupally is a board-certified physician in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. She is a nationally recognized leader in Regenerative and Interventional Spine Medicine and a certified life care planner.
Discussion by the Court
Caitlin Civiello
Plaintiff Edelmira Encarnacion has identified Dr. Caitlin Civiello of the expert
witness firm, LCPpro LLC, as the life care planning expert that plans to testify as to her future medical care.
1. Medical Foundation
J.B. Hunt contended that Civiello’s life care plan lacked medical foundation because Civiello did not have the requisite expertise and did not consider comprehensive enough evidence. The Court disagreed.
J.B. Hunt pointed out that Civiello’s opinions did not conform to recommendations made by Encarnacion’s treating providers.
There is no requirement that an expert’s opinions agree with the recommendations of a treating physician. That is why it is common to have competing testimony between a treating physician and medical expert.
To the extent Civiello’s opinions diverge from specific recommendations, the Court concluded that those opinions may nonetheless stand on her independent review of the medical records and literature, and her experience as a licensed physician and certified life care planner.
J.B. Hunt argued that her opinions are inadmissible because she lacked credentials in orthopedics, neurology, and psychology. She also lacked experience providing non-emergency treatment and pain management care.
The Court, however, will not exclude Civiello’s testimony by virtue of the fact that she is not a specialist in all areas of care outlined in her report. The jury may weigh her testimony accordingly.
2. The LCPPro Database
In addition to identifying future care, Civiello also estimated the “usual, customary, and reasonable” (“UCR”) cost of that care using the LCPPro Median Cost Research Database.
The data consists of only medical bills from cases where an LCPpro expert was retained to author a life care plan. In other words, the care LCPpro references in the data is care provided almost exclusively to Personal Injury Plaintiffs. An LCPpro employee, Shelene Giles, maintains the database.
The Northern District of Georgia recently found that an LCPpro expert could not offer opinions based on the LCPpro Database because it was confidential, so the jury could not “probe its functioning or accuracy.”
The LCPpro Database is based on a limited sample of data, despite being relied upon for conclusions about a broader population. The Court found that Civiello’s expert testimony must be excluded under Rule 702 to the extent that it relied upon the LCPpro Database.
Still, Plaintiffs made it “excruciatingly clear” that the LCPpro Database is not a methodology, but merely facts relied upon. But even assuming this is true, an admissible expert opinion is based on reliable methodologies and sufficient facts.
Pallavi Cherukupally
Like Civiello, Cherukupally is a life care planning expert employed by the expert witness firm, LCPpro. Plaintiffs authored a life care plan for Hanifon, and Plaintiffs planned to offer his testimony on Hanifon’s future medical care needs. Defendants filed a motion to exclude much of Cherukupally’s testimony.
Defendants argued that Cherukupally’s opinion lacked medical foundation because Cherukupally is not a certified specialist concerning every treatment she includes in her plan. They also argued that her opinions diverge from the recommendations made by Hanifon’s treating physician. Again, there is no requirement that an expert’s opinions agree with the recommendations of a treating physician. As with Civiello, Cherukupally possesses experience and qualifications as a physician and life care planner. Her opinions align, at least in part, with the recommendations of Hanifon’s treating physicians.
The Court will not exclude Cherukupally’s opinions in their entirety. The Court, however, will exclude Cherukupally’s opinions based on the LCPpro Database for the same reasons that it is excluding those of Civiello. Unlike Civiello, Cherukupally relied on her team to calculate averages and medians of data in the LCPpro Database. Although the parties make much of this fact, it does not alter the Court’s analysis.
Held
The Court granted in part and denied in part the Defendants’ motions to exclude the testimony of Caitlin E.A. Civiello and Pallavi R. Cherukupally.
Key Takeaway
- Although the fact that a physician may be a board-certified specialist may warrant giving greater weight to that physician’s opinion on an issue in his or her area of expertise, there is no requirement that a physician be actively practicing, or practicing in a particular area of, medicine in order to qualify as a medical expert.
- Plaintiffs cannot sidestep Rule 702 by rebranding the output of their opaque data selection process as “facts.”
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Encarnacion V. JB Hunt Transport Incorporated |
| Docket Number: | 2:24cv1384 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court, Arizona |
| Order Date: | January 12, 2026 |
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