Opinion ID: 161717
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Evidence Regarding Other Tractor Rollover Accidents

Text: 6 Defendants filed a motion in limine to exclude evidence concerning dissimilar accidents. Defendants claimed that proffered testimony concerning other rollover injuries or fatalities should be excluded pursuant to Rules 401, 402, 403, and 802 of the Federal Rules of Evidence because the other accidents were not substantially similar to Black's accident involving Defendants' mower. 7 In ruling on the motion in limine, the trial judge focused on the deposition testimony of John B. Sevart, a licensed professional engineer in private practice. In his deposition testimony, Sevart relied on an article by James F. Arndt entitled Rollover Protective Structures for Farm and Construction Tractors, a 50-year Review to support his opinion that Defendants' mower was defective and unreasonably dangerous. Sevart explained that the Arndt article reported that fifty thousand people had been killed in tractor rollovers in the fifty years before 1971. 2 Sevart also testified concerning his personal investigations of rollovers of small tractors used primarily for mowing lawns in which an individual was killed or seriously injured, the partial results of which he had published in an article he co-authored with Larry Schmitt entitled The Design of ROPS for Small Tractors in the Ten to Twenty Horsepower Range. The district court denied the motion in limine, concluding that the testimony was admissible to show notice to Defendants of a design defect. 8 The trial record is replete with numerous references in the testimony not only to the Arndt and Sevart/Schmitt articles but also to other studies of tractor rollovers. The actual studies, however, were never admitted into evidence. Despite the numerous references to other accidents made during the course of the trial, Defendants failed to raise an objection, beyond their initial motion in limine, based on a lack of substantial similarity. 9 Defendants now claim on appeal that [t]he trial court erred by admitting numerous references to other rollover accidents and statistical evidence involving dissimilar agricultural tractors, which had an unfair prejudicial effect on the jury's consideration of whether the subject 18 hp mower was dangerous. This court generally reviews district court decisions concerning the admission of evidence for abuse of discretion. See Smith v. Ingersoll-Rand Co., 214 F.3d 1235, 1246 (10th Cir. 2000). An abuse of discretion occurs when the district court's decision is arbitrary, capricious, whimsical, or manifestly unreasonable. Coletti v. Cudd Pressure Control, 165 F.3d 767, 777 (10th Cir. 1999). 10 The threshold inquiry in any dispute over the admissibility of evidence is whether the evidence is relevant. Id. This court has stated that evidence of other accidents in a products liability suit is relevant to show notice, demonstrate the existence of a defect, or to refute the testimony of a defense witness. See Four Corners Helicopters, Inc. v. Turbomeca, S.A., 979 F.2d 1434, 1440 (10th Cir. 1992). Before evidence of other accidents is admissible for any purpose, however, the party seeking its admission must show the circumstances surrounding the other accidents were substantially similar to the accident that is the subject of the litigation before the court. See Wheeler v. John Deere Co., 862 F.2d 1404, 1407 (10th Cir. 1988). 11
12 (a) Arndt Study--In considering Defendants' claim of error, we first focus on the testimony of Sevart referencing the Arndt study. The district court treated Defendants' motion in limine as a specific objection to the testimony of Sevart. As stated above, Sevart relied on the statistics in the Arndt article concerning the number of people killed in tractor rollovers in the fifty years before 1971 to support his conclusion that the mower manufactured by Defendants was defective and unreasonably dangerous. It does not appear from the record that Plaintiff made any attempt to establish the substantial similarity of the tractor rollovers reported in the Arndt article to the accident that caused the death of Black. This court will assume, therefore, that such a showing was not made during the proceedings relating to Defendants' motion in limine. . 13 That Plaintiff failed to show substantial similarity, however, does not automatically mean that there was an abuse of discretion in allowing Sevart's deposition testimony. 14 Our review . . . is not contingent on the theory of admissibility adopted by the district court: evidence does not become inadmissible simply because the district court relied on an erroneous reason for admitting it. So long as the evidence is admissible under some legally correct theory, no error occurred. 15 Ingersoll-Rand Co., 214 F.3d at 1247-48 (quotation omitted). 16 Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence permits a witness qualified as an expert to give an opinion about scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge which will assist the trier of fact in determining a fact in issue. Fed. R. Evid. 702. Rule 703 pertains to the facts or data upon which an expert may base his opinion, and at the time of trial provided as follows: 17 The facts or data in the particular case upon which an expert bases an opinion or inference may be those perceived by or made known to the expert at or before the hearing. If of a type reasonably relied upon by experts in the particular field in forming opinions or inferences upon the subject, the facts or data need not be admissible in evidence. 3 18 In his testimony, Sevart relied on the Arndt study to conclude that Defendants' mower was defective and unreasonably dangerous because it did not have a ROPS. The testimony of Sevart, a licensed professional engineer, was testimony by a witness qualified as an expert. Fed. R. Evid. 702. 4 Thus, Sevart was entitled to rely on facts or data . . . of a type reasonably relied upon by experts in the particular field in forming his opinion that Defendants' mower was defective and unreasonably dangerous. Fed. R. Evid. 703. As Defendants have not argued otherwise, this court will assume that the Arndt article is of a type reasonably relied upon by experts in the particular field. Fed. R. Evid. 703. 19 Sevart was therefore entitled to rely on the Arndt article in forming his opinion about whether Defendants' mower was defective and unreasonably dangerous. It does not necessarily follow, however, that Sevart was also entitled to testify concerning the content of the Arndt article, as this evidence was otherwise inadmissable because of Plaintiff's failure to establish the substantial similarity of the other tractor rollover accidents. The language of Rule 703 does not indicate whether an expert can testify about the content of studies reasonably relied on in forming the basis of his expert opinion but otherwise inadmissable under the Federal Rules of Evidence. See Gong v. Hirsch, 913 F.2d 1269, 1273 (7th Cir. 1990) (While Rule 703 entitles experts to base their opinion on [evidence otherwise inadmissible], the rule does not address the admissibility of the underlying information.). 20 In Kinser v. Gehl Co, this court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing an expert to reference various documents used to support the expert's opinion, despite the inadmissibility of the unauthenticated documents. See 184 F.3d 1259, 1274-75 (10th Cir. 1999) (framing the issue as whether the district court erred in allowing plaintiff's expert to testify about and reference various documents relied on by the expert in forming his expert opinion, and concluding that the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing this testimony), overruled on other grounds, Weisgram v. Marley Co., 528 U.S. 440, 446 n.2, 456-57 (2000). In so holding, this court seemed to adopt the analysis articulated in a leading treatise that experts should be allowed to base their opinion on inadmissible evidence, and also to testify concerning the content of the inadmissible evidence, if the evidence is inadmissible only because of relevance or reliability concerns. See id. at 1275; see also 29 Charles Alan Wright & Victor James Gold, Federal Practice and Procedure 6273, at 311-21 (1997). This court justified its holding in Kinser by stating that [t]he rationale for this aspect of Rule 703 is that experts in the field can be presumed to know what evidence is sufficiently trustworthy and probative to merit reliance. Kinser, 184 F.3d at 1275 (quotation omitted). 21 Under circuit precedent, therefore, experts are allowed to base their opinions on otherwise inadmissible evidence if the basis upon which the evidence would otherwise be considered inadmissible is reliability or relevance concerns. Accordingly, Sevart's testimony about the content of the Arndt article was properly admitted if the substantial similarity test is driven by reliability or relevance concerns. It is clear that the substantial similarity requirement derives from relevance concerns. See 63A Am. Jur. 2d Products Liability 1067 (1997). The trial court thus did not abuse its discretion in allowing Sevart to testify about the Arndt study. 22 (b) Sevart's personal investigation of other accidents--Sevart also testified concerning his own investigation of other tractor rollovers, the partial results of which were published in an article entitled The Design of ROPS for Small Tractors in the Ten to Twenty Horsepower Range. As stated previously, the district court treated Defendants' motion in limine as a specific objection to the testimony of Sevart, but allowed Sevart to testify about his private investigation of tractor rollovers. 23 The district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing Sevart's testimony. Sevart testified that he had investigated at least twenty-five rollover accidents involving [s]mall tractors . . . [u]sed primarily for mowing, explaining the various ways in which these tractors had rolled over. The district court's conclusion that this testimony satisfied the substantial similarity test was not arbitrary, capricious, whimsical, or manifestly unreasonable. Coletti, 165 F.3d at 777.
24 Besides the testimony of Sevart, there were many other references to tractor rollover accidents throughout the course of the trial. At trial, however, Defendants did not object to the references of other tractor rollover accidents based on a lack of substantial similarity. The only time Defendants raised that particular objection was in their pre-trial motion in limine, which the district court treated as a specific objection to the videotape deposition of Sevart. As a consequence, this court must first decide if Defendants' motion in limine preserved the issue for appeal. 25 [M]ost objections [made pursuant to a motion in limine] will prove to be dependent on trial context and will be determined to be waived if not renewed at trial. United States v. Mejia-Alarcon, 995 F.2d 982, 988 (10th Cir. 1993). This court has cautioned that [p]rudent counsel will renew objections at trial. Id. Nevertheless, a pretrial motion in limine may preserve an objection if the following three factors are met: (1) the issue was fairly presented to the district court; (2) the issue is the type that can be finally decided in a pretrial hearing; and (3) the issue was unequivocally decided by the trial judge. See id. at 986. 26 Defendants' motion in limine and supporting brief were remarkably cursory, non-specific, and conclusory, containing just over one page dedicated generally to the substantial similarity standard. This district court filing did not specify the evidence it sought to be excluded, nor did it explain how the circumstances surrounding the other accidents differed from those surrounding Black's accident. Turning as it does on the substantially similar test, this motion in limine challenging all evidence of other accidents would have difficulty qualifying under the Mejia-Alarcon test as one fairly presenting the issue and of the type which could be finally resolved before trial in the absence of challenges to specific evidence. Such a motion does not enable the proponent of the evidence to lay a foundation for substantially similar circumstances. Moreover, this non-specific pretrial motion in limine did not account for trial context, the character of the evidence, or the theory upon which the plaintiff offered the evidence. See Mejia-Alarcon, 995 F.2d at 987 (stating that fact-bound determinations dependent upon the character of the evidence introduced at trial are not issues that can be finally decided at a pretrial hearing); Wheeler, 862 F.2d at 1407, 1407-08 (stating that [w]hether accidents are substantially similar depends largely upon the theory of the case and that the purpose for which the evidence is offered at trial affects the degree of similarity required). 27 Finally, even assuming the issue was fairly presented and could have been finally decided prior to trial, the district court treated Defendants' motion in limine merely as a specific objection to the videotape deposition of Sevart. At the January 12th hearing on the pending motions in limine, the district judge stated as follows: The other portion of this motion regards dissimilar accidents or statistics. In this case, I have the benefit of [Sevart's] testimony since he is going to appear by deposition and he can't change what he's already said. I agree that this testimony is permissible to show notice. Although the district court later stated that Defendants' motion is denied in its entirety, this court cannot say that Defendants' attempt to have all evidence of other accidents excluded was ruled upon without equivocation by the trial judge, the third factor in the Mejia-Alarcon test. See 995 F.2d at 986. Rather, the trial court treated Defendants' motion as a specific objection to Sevart's testimony. See supra subsection III(A)(1) (affirming the district court's decision allowing Sevart's testimony concerning other accidents). 28 This court thus concludes that Defendants' motion in limine did not preserve their objection to the various references at trial, aside from the testimony of Sevart, to other tractor rollover accidents. This court has noted in a slightly different context that 29 a trial court does not have the luxury of examining the entire record in an effort to determine whether it can stitch together from various objections made at different points in the trial a particular ground for an objection to the admission of evidence: even if it could do so, such an approach would deprive opposing counsel of the opportunity to take corrective action and would only contribute to chaos in the trial process. 30 Fenstermacher v. Telelect, Inc., No. 92-3283, 1994 WL 118046, at  (10th Cir. Mar. 28, 1994) (unpublished disposition). It was Defendants' responsibility to object as specific pieces of evidence were offered, not the trial court's duty to sua sponte monitor the Plaintiff's evidence. Pretrial motions in limine can be helpful to the trial court and appropriate trial strategy. They are not, however, substitutes for trial objections to specific proffered evidence. 31 As Defendants did not properly object to the testimony concerning other tractor rollovers, this court reviews the admission of the evidence only for plain error resulting in manifest injustice. United States v. Taylor, 800 F.2d 1012, 1017 (10th Cir. 1986). Because Defendants illustrated through cross examination the differences between the testimony concerning the other accidents and Black's accident, there was not a plain error resulting in manifest injustice. See Macsenti v. Becker, 237 F.3d 1223, 1231 (10th Cir. 2001) (finding no plain error in admission of expert testimony and noting that Appellant cross-examined the expert).