## Facts

- Thirteen-month-old B.K. was brought by ambulance to a hospital emergency room for a fever-related seizure.
- Emergency room staff paged a pediatrician for consultation, but treatment continued for nearly an hour before the physician arrived.
- After arrival, the physician administered intravenous phenobarbital; the seizure was brought under control about ninety minutes after B.K.’s emergency room arrival.
- B.K. and his parents sued the hospital and the physician, alleging negligent emergency-room treatment and delayed physician response caused B.K. to develop pervasive developmental disorder.
- To prove the hospital’s breach of the standard of care, plaintiffs identified a board-certified pediatrician as their expert.
- The trial court excluded the pediatrician’s testimony as unqualified to address emergency-room care and then granted summary judgment to the hospital because plaintiffs lacked an expert against it.
- Plaintiffs appealed the order granting summary judgment to the hospital; the claims against the physician were not part of the appeal.

## Issues

1. Whether the order granting summary judgment to the hospital, while other claims remained against a different defendant, was a final, appealable order as to the hospital.
2. Whether the trial court abused its discretion or committed legal error by excluding a board-certified pediatrician from testifying about the standard of care for emergency-room treatment of a pediatric seizure.
3. Whether summary judgment for the hospital was improper once the expert exclusion was erroneous.

## Decision

- The appellate court treated the summary judgment order as final and appealable because it disposed of all claims against the hospital.
- The court reversed the order granting summary judgment to the hospital.
- The court held the trial court erred in excluding the pediatrician as an expert on the relevant standard of care.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the appellate decision.

## Legal Principles

- An order granting summary judgment that fully resolves all claims against a particular defendant is final and appealable as to that defendant, even if litigation continues against others.
- Trial courts have discretion to qualify experts, but that discretion is constrained by governing evidentiary standards; misapplication of those standards constitutes reversible error.
- Medical expert qualification follows a liberal standard: a physician need not share the exact specialty or board certification of the field at issue if education, training, and experience show sufficient knowledge of the specific standard of care.
- Overlap between medical disciplines may support qualification; deficiencies in the depth, currency, or setting of practice typically affect the weight of the testimony, not admissibility.
- In professional negligence actions, exclusion of the plaintiff’s necessary expert may lead to summary judgment; if the exclusion is erroneous, the resulting summary judgment cannot stand.

## Conclusion

The appellate court reversed summary judgment for the hospital because the trial court applied an overly restrictive, specialty-label approach to expert qualification; a pediatrician with relevant experience and supervisory familiarity with pediatric emergency protocols could testify on the emergency-room standard of care for treating a pediatric seizure.


B.K. v. Chambersburg Hosp., 834 A.2d 1178 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2003)