The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has declined to entertain the appeal of an en banc Superior Court panel’s 6-3 decision that lawyers should be allowed to voir dire prospective jurors as to their knowledge of the so-called medical malpractice crisis.
Reversing a Philadelphia trial judge, the majority in Capoferri v. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, noting the substantial media coverage of the so-called med-mal crisis when the trial in that case got under way in late 2003, concluded that a new trial was warranted because attorneys for the family of Jared Capoferri, now 11, were prevented from asking questions designed to elicit from members of the venire their thoughts, if any, on the issue.
