Expert Witness
When faculty members act as expert witnesses in civil litigation cases, they are not covered under the protection of the Insurance Trust Fund.
Permissions Required Before Accepting Expert Witness Assignment: When a faculty member wishes to accept a medical-legal review of a civil case, it must be requested through the Department Chairman to the Dean of the College of Medicine and the Insurance Coordinator. The request will be reviewed to note what physicians and attorneys are involved and to alert the faculty to any possible conflict with the University of Florida. An approval will be returned to the faculty member in approximately one week. In no way is this approval process meant to censor a faculty member’s rights.
Outside Employment: An outside employment form must be completed for each instance that a faculty member is acting as an expert witness. The outside employment form is necessary for any type of medical-legal review. The only exception is if a faculty member does a case review for the Trust Funds in Jacksonville, Gainesville or Tampa.
Each request to review medical-legal cases must be accompanied by the outside employment form.
The forms can be obtained from the web at
http://www.aa.ufl.edu/aa/forms/. After signing the form, the faculty member should forward it to the Chairman’s office. From there the form is sent to the Dean’s Office.Fees: Fees earned as expert witnesses (earned outside the department and for which the faculty member is not representing the department or the University) may be kept by the individual faculty member.
Use of State or Shands Hospital employees for Medical/Legal Consultations: Medical-legal consultations and other such non-university functions are permissible, but the faculty member cannot use State or Shands Hospital employees’ work time for this purpose. If the faculty member wishes to hire State or Shands employees for this purpose to work after hours and pay them separately, that is acceptable.
Use of Department Stationery: Department, Shands Hospital, or University stationery CANNOT be used by individuals for external, legal or business consultation.
