Neurology Expert’s Testimony on Postoperative Complications Excluded
Posted on September 1, 2025 by Expert Witness Profiler
This medical malpractice action is brought by Gladys Torres-Correa (“Plaintiff”) against Instituto de Ojos y Piel, Inc. and Dr. Miguel Santiago García, along with several unnamed insurers. After undergoing ophthalmic surgery performed by Defendants, Plaintiff allegedly developed a series of complications.
Consequently, Plaintiff claimed that those complications were caused by Defendants’ negligence. To prove her claims, Plaintiff intended to introduce at trial the expert witness testimony of Dr. José A. Rodríguez Robles.
However, Defendants requested that the Court deem Rodríguez’s proffered testimony inadmissible.
Neurology Expert Witness
Dr. José Antonio Rodríguez Robles is a neurologist with extensive experience in alternative medicine.
He did his doctorate in medicine and surgery at Ponce Health Sciences University.
Discussion by the Court
Defendants provided four reasons to exclude the testimony of Rodríguez. First, Defendants argued that Rodríguez is unqualified to offer expert opinions regarding the medical issues in this case, given that he is not an ophthalmologist, has no formal training in the field, and has never performed the surgeries Plaintiff received in this case. Second, Defendants asserted that Rodríguez has failed to adequately describe what he believes to be the applicable standard of care in this case. Third, Defendants contended that Rodríguez’s proffered testimony regarding causation is wholly conclusory and “outcome driven.” Finally, Defendants asserted that “Rodríguez’s report and his deposition testimony are devoid of any clinical evidence, specific findings or medical literature to support” his opinion.
In the first report, Rodríguez listed the medical records he reviewed, described Plaintiff’s then-current symptoms, provided a diagnosis of Plaintiff’s condition, and made general reference to three scientific publications. However, the first report did not define the “adequate standard of care” or the “proper precautions” that Rodríguez believed were not observed by Defendants.
The second report also summarized information contained in the first report, and included citations to ten legal and scientific references that Rodríguez consulted in forming his opinion, three of which were also included in the first report. At no point, however, does either report ever attempt to explain how the opinion of Rodríguez was informed by or related to any of the referenced scholarship.
Rodríguez Fails to Identify the Applicable Standard of Care
Rodríguez failed to provide any such evidence of a national standard of care, and Plaintiff openly conceded that fact.
The deposition testimony of Rodríguez did not cure these deficiencies. Wherever Rodríguez was asked a direct and concrete question regarding the applicable standard of care during the deposition, he failed to articulate the relevant standard in any meaningful detail.
The Court held that these analytical gaps implicate the reliability of the proffered expert testimony, as Rodríguez provided no reasoned or detailed basis for the conclusions adopted in his reports. Furthermore, the absence of any reliable opinion testimony regarding the applicable standard of care also compromises the relevance of the proffered testimony.
Rodríguez Failed to Provide Support for the Conclusion that Defendants Deviated from an Applicable Standard of Care, or that any such Deviation caused Plaintiff’s Injuries
Even if Rodríguez had articulated an applicable standard of care, the proffered testimony still failed to provide a reasoned basis for the conclusion that Defendants breached any such applicable standard of care.
In characterizing the opinion of Rodríguez as “outcome driven, as opposed to causation driven,” Defendants argued that Rodríguez improperly relied on the mere fact that Plaintiff sustained an injury to reach the conclusion that Defendants were negligent. The Court agreed. The opinion proffered by Rodríguez is entirely conclusory, as he failed to provide any substantive explanation of the “proper procedures” or the preferred surgical “technique” that allegedly went unheeded by Defendants. Nor did he ever explain how any such unstated acts or omissions caused Plaintiff to experience postoperative complications.
When urged during the deposition to cite any evidence supporting the conclusion that Plaintiff’s injuries were caused by Defendants’ negligence, Rodríguez explained that his opinion was simply based on the fact that Plaintiff had sustained injuries. However, by indicating that Plaintiff’s injuries could have occurred even in the absence of any negligence, Rodríguez deposition testimony appears to undermine his own conclusory opinion that Defendants must have been negligent.
Rodríguez Failed to Explain his Methodology or Provide Adequate Data to Support his Opinions
In this case, the Court observed a significant analytical gap between the scientific literature cited by Rodríguez and the conclusory opinions articulated in his report.
In the reports, Rodríguez made general reference to eight publications relating to matters of ophthalmology, as well as two publications regarding “legal and ethical issues in medical malpractice.”
Yet the reports never provided any analysis whatsoever to explain the relationship between the sources cited in the reports and the conclusions drawn by Rodríguez. None of the conclusions reached by Rodríguez cite directly to any scientific literature; the sources in question are simply appended to the end of the reports without any internal citations or further explanation. The reports never quote any of the cited sources, never summarize their findings, and never describe what, if any, data was drawn from the cited scholarship. To determine whether the citations provide any support for the proffered opinion of Rodríguez would require pure speculation where, for instance, Rodríguez made general reference to a nearly 1000-page textbook without any further explanation of how he relied on that scholarship.
Held
The Court granted the Defendants’ motion to exclude the testimony of Dr. José A. Rodríguez Robles.
Key Takeaway:
In performing its gatekeeping function, the Court must determine whether the proffered expert opinion is “supported by an accepted methodology that is based on substantial scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge.” The Court will not admit expert testimony that lacks “good grounds”: the admissibility of expert witness testimony is contingent upon whether the expert establishes “a valid scientific connection” between the data on which they have relied and the “pertinent inquiry” at issue in the case.
In this case, there is a yawning “analytic gap” between the scientific literature cited by Rodríguez and the conclusory opinions articulated in his report.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Torres-Correa V. Instituto De Ojos Y Piel, Inc |
| Docket Number: | 3:23cv1025 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico |
| Order Date: | August 27, 2025 |
