You are getting ready to have a civil trial and you are now thinking to yourself, “is there a way I can prevent the other witnesses from hearing court testimony?”
If you are thinking this then you are on the right track.
The reason it may be a good idea to prevent other witnesses from the sitting in the courtroom listening to trial testimony is that a witness can then change their testimony to “fit” what has been said at trial.
In addition, a witness may not have to depend on their own memory if they can just sit up and listen to the testimony of a witness before them.
To prevent this from happening, you can ask the court to use the Rule on Witnesses.
What happens if this rule is invoked by either side is that the court will order the witnesses testifying at trial to wait outside the courtroom until they are needed to testify.
The court will also instruct the witnesses not to discuss their testimony with other witnesses.
With this said, there are exceptions to this rule.
For example, experts do not have to wait outside.
They are allowed to listen to the testimony provided in open court.
If you have any more questions on this process, or how this would work in your medical malpractice case, this is what we invite you to do if your matter happened in Maryland.
Pick up the phone and give us a call.
We can be reached at 301-850-4832.
We answer Maryland medical malpractice questions like yours all the time and we would be glad to listen to your story.
