On September 27, 2022, Plaintiffs Aislyn Batista Acevedo, Ina Ruth Kessler Krugman, and minor A.D.S.B. (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) filed the instant suit on behalf of the late David Suárez (“Suárez”) against Ashford Presbyterian Hospital (“Presby”) and various other Defendants (collectively, “Defendants”).
From September 29, 2021, until his death on October 23, 2021, Suárez was hospitalized at Presby and Doctors’ Center Hospital Bayamón (“Doctors’”). Plaintiffs alleged that, during the time that Suárez was hospitalized, Defendants failed to properly screen and treat Suárez in violation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (“EMTALA”).
Plaintiffs also alleged that all Defendants are liable under Puerto Rico law for negligence and medical malpractice. To prove their claims, Plaintiffs intended to introduce at trial the expert testimony of Dr. Dainius A. Drukteinis regarding medical management. Defendants moved the Court to rule the proffered testimony of Drukteinis inadmissible.
Emergency Medicine Expert Witness
Dr. Dainius Albertas Drukteinis has been practicing emergency medicine for over twenty years.
He graduated from Cornell Medical School in 2004. Drukteinis completed his emergency medicine training at NYU/Bellevue Hospital in New York City, finishing a four-year residency in 2008. He has served as an attending emergency medicine physician since 2008. He has previously served as an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine with the University of South Florida.
Discussion by the Court
Drukteinis provides a detailed account of his medical opinion that the physicians and staff at both Presby and Doctors’ breached the prevailing standard of care by failing to perform an MRCP or ERCP procedure, conducting poor transitions of care between medical providers during the time that Suárez was hospitalized, and transferring Suárez to another hospital facility when there was no valid reason to do so.
A. The expert report of Drukteinis reliably identifies a standard of care applicable to Defendants
Defendants argued that the expert witness opinion of Drukteinis is lacking in relevance and reliability because it assigned the same standards of care as to all seventeen medical practitioners sued by Plaintiffs: “notwithstanding the gamut of specialties involved in this case,” Defendants argued, “Drukteinis’ report did not identify the specific standard of care applicable to each physician, specialist, nurse practitioner, professional service corporation, or hospital.”
Defendants’ argument is belied by the content of the report, which expressly sets forth three standards of care broadly applicable to all physicians who were responsible for the care of Suárez.
It is therefore unclear why Defendants would argue that the expert report is deficient; indeed, the report specifically identified each Defendant physician in an account of the “chain of responsibility,” and identified three specific standards of care applicable to all of them.
Moreover, Defendants identified no legal authority holding that, in multi-defendant medical malpractice cases, an expert report must set forth its conclusions regarding the standard of care with particularity as to each respective Defendant. Nor did Defendants explain why the fact that the conclusions adopted by Drukteinis are broadly applicable to various Defendants would render those opinions any less reliable or relevant under Rule 702.
B. Defendants failed to identify any additional legal grounds for the exclusion of the proffered testimony of Drukteinis
Next, Defendants moved the Court to exclude Drukteinis as a witness for “failing to provide opinions regarding causation vis a vis each physician Defendant.”
Defendants were incorrect when they claimed that an expert witness in a medical malpractice case “must” articulate an opinion regarding causation in order to testify.
Drukteinis is not a party to this case and did not bear the burden to prove anything; instead, in civil litigation it is the Plaintiff who bears the burden to prove all three elements of a negligence claim. Accordingly, the Court declined to exclude the testimony of Drukteinis from evidence.
Held
The Court denied Defendants’ motion in limine seeking a ruling that the proffered testimony of Dr. Dainius Drukteinis was inadmissible.
Key Takeaway
Defendants fundamentally misapprehended the purpose of Rule 702 and the role of expert witnesses in federal court.
Even assuming for the sake of argument that Defendants are correct that Drukteinis provided no opinion regarding causation in his expert witness report — a conclusion that the Court did not adopt — Defendants failed to explain why that would render his proffered testimony relating to the duty and breach elements of Plaintiffs’ negligence claim unreliable. The Court found that it would not.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Batista-Acevedo V. Presbyterian Community Hospital, Inc. |
| Docket Number: | 3:22cv1468 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court, Puerto Rico |
| Order Date: | February 10, 2026 |
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