Opinion ID: 2999727
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Expert Appraisal Testimony

Text: The bankruptcy court permitted Neshewat’s expert appraiser to testify over Salem’s objection. In passing, the court commented that the principles from Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), apply “with less force in the context of a bench trial” and reasoned, “I can accept the evidence. And if I find that it’s not well grounded by experience and expertise in the witness, I can ignore that. The gatekeeping function that Daubert talks about is most pointedly at issue in a jury trial where a jury might be misled by an expert who doesn’t have sufficient qualifications.” Salem seizes on this remark and urges us to find that the court erred as a matter of law by failing to hold the expert to the standards codified in Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and by finding those standards inapplicable to a bench trial. He also contends that for the proffered expert to be an expert in evaluating the worth of a property the expert necessarily must have expertise in making or estimating the cost of repairs because, in his view, the value of the house is significantly reduced because of the need for extensive repairs. Salem’s argument misses the bankruptcy court’s point. It is not that evidence may be less reliable during a bench trial; it is that the court’s gatekeeping role is necessarily different. Where the gatekeeper and the factfinder are one and the same—that is, the judge—the need to make such decisions prior to hearing the testimony is lessened. See United States v. Brown, 415 F.3d 1257, 1268-69 (11th Cir. 2005). That is not to say that the scientific reliability requirement is lessened in such situations; the point is only that the court can hear the evidence and make its reliability determination during, rather than in advance of, trial. Thus, where the factfinder and the gatekeeper are the same, the court does not err in admitting the evidence No. 05-1914 15 subject to the ability later to exclude it or disregard it if it turns out not to meet the standard of reliability established by Rule 702. We see no error in the court’s conclusion that Neshewat’s expert was entitled to present his testimony. He testified that he had been certified by the State of New York as an appraiser for 15 years, that he specialized in residential appraisals, and that he had performed more than 4,000 appraisals, the majority of which were in the same county as the Gellatly Drive house. The purpose of an appraisal is to determine the market value of the existing house, after all, not to determine how much it would cost to change it, either by repairs or otherwise. Many properties are sold in which the appraisal is tied wholly to the value of the land itself, where it is expected that the building on the property will be demolished. Furthermore, the bankruptcy court is quite capable of separating out what the witness is an expert in and what he is not. The testimony on the market value of the house was important for determining the amount of Salem’s equity in the house. This case is light years away from Ancho v. Pentek Corp., 157 F.3d 512 (7th Cir. 1998), in which the district court properly excluded a mechanical engineer’s expert testimony from a case about an accident in a plant involving moving conveyer belts. There, the engineer possessed “no expertise in plant design and [ ] he had failed to observe the transfer car in operation, much less even take the time to visit the accident site.” Id. at 516. In this case, the expert appraiser was experienced, had visited the house twice, made appraisals on the standard form used by Fannie Mae, and had used quantitative sales comparison analysis to help determine the market value of the house. The bankruptcy court was well within bounds to permit this testimony. 16 No. 05-1914