## Facts

- Four-month-old Jason Lis was brought to a hospital emergency room with breathing difficulty after a possible food aspiration.
- The duty physician, Dr. Wayne H. Allen (employed by an affiliated clinic), ordered blood testing showing an exceptionally high blood sugar reading.
- Dr. Allen tentatively diagnosed diabetes with diabetic acidosis and administered 15 units of regular insulin.
- The diabetes diagnosis was later shown to be incorrect; Jason was not diabetic.
- Jason soon experienced severe seizures during hospitalization and later suffered severe brain damage, mental retardation, and probable blindness.
- Jason and his parents sued the hospital, the clinic, and Dr. Allen for medical malpractice in federal court under diversity jurisdiction.
- The district court bifurcated the trial so the jury first decided negligence and causation without damages evidence.
- At trial, defendants presented multiple experts attributing Jason’s injuries to a congenital brain disorder rather than the insulin injection.
- The jury found Dr. Allen negligent but found the negligence was not the proximate cause of Jason’s injuries; judgment was entered for defendants.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court violated Federal Rule of Evidence 611(b) by routinely allowing cross-examination beyond the scope of direct examination without a case-specific exercise of discretion.
2. Whether the district court violated Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 42(b) by routinely bifurcating negligence cases into liability and damages phases without case-specific findings of convenience, prejudice, expedition, or economy.
3. Whether challenged evidentiary rulings and the court’s management of closing argument, considered with the above practices, warranted reversal.

## Decision

- The Third Circuit affirmed the judgment for defendants.
- The court held the district judge’s blanket practice of permitting cross-examination beyond the scope of direct was inconsistent with Rule 611(b), which requires a discretionary, case-by-case decision to expand cross.
- The court held the judge’s automatic bifurcation practice was inconsistent with Rule 42(b), which requires individualized consideration of convenience, prejudice, expedition, and economy.
- Despite these rule violations, the court found no showing of prejudice sufficient to require a new trial, given the record and the strength of the defense causation evidence.

## Legal Principles

- Under Federal Rule of Evidence 611(b), cross-examination should be limited to the subject matter of direct examination and credibility; inquiry into additional matters requires a specific exercise of judicial discretion, not a standing policy.
- Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 42(b), separate trials may be ordered only after a case-specific assessment of convenience, avoidance of prejudice, and whether separation will further expedition and economy; automatic bifurcation is improper.
- Appellate relief for trial-management error requires a showing that the error affected substantial rights; disapproved practices may be treated as harmless absent demonstrable prejudice.

## Conclusion

The Third Circuit rejected routine trial practices that bypass individualized discretion under Rules 611(b) and 42(b), but affirmed the defense verdict because plaintiffs did not establish that those errors, or other trial-management decisions, prejudicially affected the jury’s finding that negligence did not proximately cause Jason Lis’s injuries.


Lis v. Robert Packer Hosp., 579 F.2d 819 (3d Cir. 1978)