Case Title: Alabama Power Co. v. Robinson

Citation: 447 So. 2d 148

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1984-02-24T00:00:00Z

Document:
447 So. 2d 148 (1983)
ALABAMA POWER COMPANY, a Corporation
v.
Barbara A. ROBINSON, who sues as Administratrix of the Estate of Thomas Gene Robinson, deceased.
82-741.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
December 22, 1983.
As Modified on Denial of Rehearing February 24, 1984.
*149 Harold A. Bowron, Jr. of Balch, Bingham, Baker, Ward, Smith, Bowman & Thagard, Birmingham, and William O. Walton, Jr., Lafayette, for appellant.
John W. Johnson, Jr., Lanett, and R.C. Wallace, Jr., Lafayette, for appellee.
MADDOX, Justice.
A number of issues are raised by appellant, but the dispositive issue is whether the trial court erred to reversal in permitting the appellee's expert witness to offer opinion evidence, over objection,[1] regarding facts neither observed by him nor hypothesized by the use of hypothetical questions. We reverse and remand for a new trial.
This is the second appeal of this case, see Alabama Power Co. v. Robinson, 404 So. 2d 22 (Ala.1981), and involves a wrongful death action commenced by appellee Barbara A. Robinson, as administratrix of the estate of Thomas Gene Robinson.
On April 10, 1975, Mr. Robinson was killed when a citizen's band radio (CB) antenna he was assisting in lowering contacted one or more electric wires of appellant, Alabama Power Company. The accident occurred at the home of Robert and Cora Smith. Robert Smith was also killed in the accident. At the time the accident occurred, Mr. Robinson had been assisting Mr. Smith in taking down the CB antenna, which had been attached to the south side of the Smith home, so that it could be repaired. The antenna and the pole to *150 which it was attached were more than 36 feet in height.
The facts indicate that Smith and Robinson discussed taking the antenna down and the consequent danger if the antenna struck appellant's power lines running along Smith Street parallel to the Smith house. The primary line of this series of lines carried 7,200 volts. There were other less powerfully charged lines close to the house. Running from a transformer attached at the set pole to the Smith residence was a three-wire service drop of wrapped, but uninsulated, wire. These lines were 120/240 volt lines. From the record, it does not appear that either Smith or Robinson was aware that the service drop lines were uninsulated.
At trial, appellee sought to establish that some part of the antenna which Robinson was helping lower contacted the uninsulated service drop lines, resulting in a shock which caused the men to stumble and drop the antenna onto the more highly charged power line. The appellant, on the other hand, attempted to show that the antenna struck the 7,200-volt power line first because the two men were careless in failing to detach a supporting guy wire; appellant says that because the guy wire was not detached, it prevented the antenna from being lowered in such a manner as to avoid touching the power lines on Smith Street, and that the guy wire pulled the antenna back so that it fell into the more highly charged power line.
At the trial, appellee's expert witness, Andrew Payne, was allowed by the trial court to testify, over objections and a motion to exclude, that the antenna "apparently" contacted appellant's service drop lines. This testimony by appellee's expert witness, along with the objections, appears in the record as follows:
Payne's opinion as to the antenna or some part of the antenna coming in contact with the service drop wire prior to coming in contact with the 7,200-volt power line was based on the previous testimony of Roger Noles, who had assisted in lowering the antenna. Noles, who at the time of the accident was kneeling on the roof of the Smith residence unfastening a guy wire which had been attached to the house, testified to the following sequence of events:
He further testified as to the location of the antenna when he saw the fire:
The testimony of Delmar Smith, a witness called by the appellant, who as a passenger *152 in a passing car observed the tragic episode, testified as follows:
We include Smith's testimony to show its consistency with that of the witness Noles, upon which the expert's opinion was based. According to Smith, the men did not fall before the antenna hit the wire on Smith Street and the big ball of fire appeared, but fell after contact with the 7,200-volt more highly charged electrical line.
Appellee admits that there was no testimony that the antenna or any part of the antenna hit the service drop lines, but nonetheless argues that it was a proper inference. In brief, appellee makes the following assertion:
Appellant contends that it was reversible error to allow appellee's expert witness, over appellant's objections and motion to exclude, to testify to this conclusion because it was not based on any facts elicited at the trial, but on conjecture. We agree.
An expert witness may give his opinion based on his own knowledge of the facts, stating those facts and then his opinion, or he may give an opinion based upon a hypothetical question as to facts already in evidence or evidence to be subsequently admitted. Yates v. Christian Benevolent Funeral Homes, 356 So. 2d 135, 139 (Ala. 1978); C. Gamble, McElroy's Alabama Evidence, § 130.01 (3d ed. 1977). Where personal observation is lacking, however, an expert witness cannot be permitted to give his expert opinion until facts upon which his opinion is to be based have been properly hypothesized before him. See Mitchell Square Bale Ginning Co. v. Grant, 143 Ala. 194, 197, 38 So. 855 (1904); Greer Bros., Inc. v. Walker, 416 So. 2d 1045, 1048 (Ala.Civ.App.1982); see also 2 Wigmore on Evidence § 676 (Chadbourn rev. 1979).
The legal reasoning buttressing the necessity of hypothetical questions is explained in the following propositions:
2 Wigmore on Evidence, supra, § 672 at 933-934.
We have opined that "[e]xperts may be permitted to state facts known to them because of their expert knowledge but should not be allowed to substitute opinion for fact, although they can express an opinion on established or assumed facts." R.L. Reid, Inc. v. Plant, 350 So. 2d 1022, 1025 (Ala.1977). The fact that hypothetical questioning was not utilized by appellee's counsel when questioning appellee's expert witness was not the only flaw in this evidence, however. In the instant case, the facts were in dispute as to whether the antenna hit the 7,200-volt wire before the men fell. Roger Noles testified that his attention was first attracted to the plight of Smith and Robinson by a loud noise, which other testimony indicated was consistent with the metal antenna hitting the more highly charged wire. The only testimony suggesting that the antenna contacted the service drop wires came from witness Payne, who based his conclusion on the testimony of Roger Noles. Yet, Payne incorrectly recalled Noles's testimony by stating that the two men "began to slouch", when in actuality, Noles testified that he "saw fire coming up the guy wires and saw them falling."
The appellee contends that prior contact with the service drop lines is a reasonable inference which can be drawn from the facts shown by the evidence in this case. See Morrisette v. Commercial Credit Corp., 345 So. 2d 298, 300 (Ala.Civ. App.1977). We disagree, however. Appellant's expert witness concluded that the slouching of Smith and Robinson indicated that the antenna or some part of the antenna made contact with the service drop wires prior to touching the 7,200-volt wire, despite the absence of any direct evidence supporting this scenario. Yet, an equally plausible explanation suggested by other testimony at the trial is that the antenna was difficult to handle and became unwieldy, the men lost their footing on the damp ground and accidentally dropped the antenna onto the 7,200-volt wire. Consequently, we are of the opinion that the trial court erred by permitting appellee's expert witness to testify that the antenna "apparently" struck the drop service lines. This conclusion was not a reasonable inference deduced from a premise of fact; rather it was a conclusion based on speculation and conjecture. Indeed, as a theory of causation, a conjecture is simply an explanation *154 consistent with known facts or conditions, but not deducible from them as a reasonable inference. See, e.g., Griffin Lumber Co. v. Harper, 247 Ala. 616, 25 So. 2d 505 (1946).
We find it unnecessary to discuss the other issues raised by appellant; therefore, the judgment is reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
TORBERT, C.J., and JONES, SHORES and BEATTY, JJ., concur.
MADDOX, Justice.
OPINION MODIFIED; APPLICATION FOR REHEARING OVERRULED.
TORBERT, C.J., and JONES, SHORES and BEATTY, JJ., concur.
[1]  The actual objection was that the expert's opinion was "not predicated on sufficient facts" and that "no proper predicate has been laid for an expression of an opinion by this witness."