Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-5th-circuit/1902246.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 05:12:42+00:00

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This case arises from a fire onboard the Budget Bender, a recreational yacht owned by Appellant Chad Gonzalez and insured by Appellant Atlantic Specialty Insurance Company. The Budget Bender caught fire while secured in its usual slip at a marina in Slidell, Louisiana. Appellants sued the boat’s manufacturer, Porter, Inc., alleging claims under redhibition and the Louisiana Products Liability Act.1 Specifically, Appellants allege that the Budget Bender contained a defect that allowed water to drip from the deck and wet bar area into the wiring harness below, leading to corrosion of certain bundled electrical wires known as “pigtails” on the port side of the boat. Appellants theorized that this corrosion caused an electrical current to travel through the boat’s wiring system until it melted wires that in turn ignited a factory-installed sectional sofa on the starboard side of the vessel. By contrast, Porter maintains that the cause of the fire is undetermined, and that there is “nothing to indicate” a connection between the corroded pigtail and the fire.
Appellants retained three experts: marine surveyor Guy Plaisance, electrical engineer Troy Little, and fire investigator Gary Jones. Each of these experts visited the boat individually, and they also participated in a “joint inspection” with two Porter representatives.2 Porter filed motions in limine to exclude each expert, and the district court granted the motions to exclude Little and Plaisance. Then, after a two-day bench trial, the court found that Appellants failed to establish that the fire occurred because of a redhibitory defect or an unreasonably dangerous design flaw and rendered judgment in favor of Porter. Appellants now challenge the district court’s exclusion of Plaisance and Little, as well as its ultimate judgment.
After careful review of the record, the parties’ briefs, and with the benefit of oral argument, we find no reversible error and, accordingly, affirm.
Appellants’ first excluded expert, Guy Plaisance, inspected the Budget Bender twice in the month following the fire. Months later, he returned to the boat to perform a “hose test,” in which he directed water from a garden hose onto the boat’s wet bar and tracked where the water ended up. He later repeated the experiment on another Porter vessel with a similar wet bar configuration. According to Plaisance, these “tests” revealed that “water running on the [wet] bar top” would “drip or flow down onto the DC wiring harnesses” directly below. Plaisance claimed that this water intrusion was “a direct result of a defective design and workmanship by [Porter],” and that it caused the electrical short that led to the fire.
On appeal, Appellants do not argue that Plaisance should have been allowed to testify after the videos were excluded, nor do they claim to have met the substantial similarity requirement. Instead, Appellants insist only that the hose-test videos were not intended as a re-enactment or a simulation, and thus the substantial similarity requirement should not apply. We disagree. Plaisance conducted the hose test “to determine how water was entering the machinery space wire harness,” which goes directly to Appellants’ theory of the case.13 Because Appellants failed to show a substantial similarity of circumstances and conditions, and because Plaisance’s conclusions were based on the unreliable tests, the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding Plaisance’s report and testimony.
After visually inspecting the damage, Little attempted to perform a “wiring analysis” using a wiring diagram but was “unable to accurately determine the relationship” between the port-side pigtail connector and the fire origin area. Little then returned to the Budget Bender to conduct a “field wiring analysis.” Little’s report revealed that even after this analysis, “[a] complete determination of which devices may have been involved and whether or not the ground circuit was involved ha[d] not been determined.” Nonetheless, he theorized that water flowing from the wet bar corroded the pigtail connector and caused a short circuit, which in turn energized circuits with no circuit breaker protection, causing an electrical current to travel through the boat’s electrical connections until they overheated and started the fire.
“[N]othing in either Daubert or the Federal Rules of Evidence requires a district court to admit opinion evidence that is connected to existing data only by the ipse dixit of the expert. A court may conclude that there is simply too great an analytical gap between the data and the opinion proffered.”15 Based on our review of the record, it is apparent that the district court did not err in finding that such a gap existed here. Therefore, we find no abuse of discretion in the district court’s exclusion of Little’s testimony.
We turn now to the merits of Appellants’ claims. The district court issued its Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law after a two-day bench trial in which it heard testimony from Appellant Chad Gonzalez, Appellants’ remaining expert, Porter’s expert, and two Porter employees. The court found that the cause of the fire was undetermined and, relatedly, that Appellants had failed to establish the existence of a redhibitory defect or an unreasonably dangerous design flaw by a preponderance of the evidence. The court then rendered judgment in favor of Porter.
Having reviewed the briefs, the applicable law, and the pertinent portions of the record, we see no error that warrants disturbing the court’s findings or its judgment. Accordingly, we affirm.
1. Appellants also alleged breach of contract and negligence but dropped their breach of contract claim before trial and have abandoned any freestanding negligence claim on appeal.
2. The joint inspection also included a representative from another company, Molex, that manufactured some of the electrical connectors onboard the Budget Bender. The joint inspection ruled out the Molex connectors as a possible cause of the fire.
3. Rule 702 provides that:A witness who is qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education may testify in the form of an opinion or otherwise if: (a) the expert’s scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue; (b) the testimony is based on sufficient facts or data; (c) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods; and (d) the expert has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of the case.Fed. R. Evid. 702.
4. Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 589, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993). While “[m]ost of the safeguards provided for in Daubert are not as essential” in the context of a bench trial, a trial judge may still exclude expert testimony that is either unreliable or irrelevant. Gibbs v. Gibbs, 210 F.3d 491, 500 (5th Cir. 2000).
5. Paz v. Brush Engineered Materials, Inc., 555 F.3d 383, 388 (5th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks omitted).
7. Bocanegra v. Vicmar Servs., Inc., 320 F.3d 581, 584 (5th Cir. 2003). “If we find an abuse of discretion ․, we next review the error under the harmless error doctrine, affirming the judgment, unless the ruling affected substantial rights of the complaining party.” Id.
8. Barnes v. General Motors Corp., 547 F.2d 275, 277 (5th Cir. 1977).
11. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
12. McCune v. Graco Children’s Products, Inc., 495 F. App'x 535, 540 (5th Cir. 2012) (unpublished); see also Muth v. Ford Motor Co., 461 F.3d 557, 566 (5th Cir. 2006).
13. Similarly, Appellants now contend that “these tests were offered to show only that water will leak behind the wet bar, ultimately travel to the engine room, and land on the wiring harness there, which would explain the corrosion, then a short circuit, and then a fire, as it did in this matter.” Once again, this detailed description reveals that the experiment was not merely an illustration of general scientific principles.
15. General Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 146, 118 S.Ct. 512, 139 L.Ed.2d 508 (1997).
PER CURIAM: ** FN** Pursuant to 5th Cir. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5th Cir. R. 47.5.4.

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