Opinion ID: 1215347
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Excluded Tests

Text: The results of experiments are not admissible in evidence unless the tests were made under conditions which were the same or substantially similar in essential particulars to those existing at the time of the accident. Habers v. Madigan, 213 Va. 485, 487, 193 S.E.2d 653, 655 (1973); Richards v. Commonwealth, 107 Va. 881, 893, 59 S.E. 1104, 1108 (1908). The plaintiff proffered evidence that in August of 1971 Value Engineering Laboratory obtained from Pepsi-Cola stock an identical sample lid, presumably manufactured by Cornelius, attached it to a Firestone tank, and pressurized the unit up to 165 psi. Initially, the safety release valve did not function automatically. The valve was released manually and the unit was repressurized. On the second occasion, the valve operated automatically at 130 psi. According to the proffer, the expert who conducted the test would have testified that he assumed that there may have been syrup in the area of the release valve on the sample lid which caused it to stick until activated manually. From this evidence, plaintiff wanted to prove that the safety release valve installed on the lid at the time of the accident was not reliable unless you manually purge it from time to time and that both Cornelius and Firestone should have warned of such a condition. We believe the trial court properly excluded that evidence. The record shows that the lid in place at the time of the accident had been used over a considerable period of time, perhaps as much as two months, in a cleaning process when a cleansing solution, not cola syrup, was in the syrup tank. Such fact makes the condition of the test lid apparently clogged by syrup substantially different from the accident lid which had been subjected to a prolonged cleaning process. The result of a test conducted under such conditions was thus inadmissible. Almost two years later in April of 1973, the Value Engineering Expert conducted another series of tests using a new Firestone tank, a set of new Cornelius lids, and a set of both old and new Firestone lids. The tank was closed with a Firestone lid and safety release valve capped so it would not operate. The unit withstood extremely high pressure, but at about the 500 psi level the rubber gasket around the entire edge of the lid extruded allowing the gas to escape. When the same procedure was employed with a Cornelius lid, that gasket did not release and the lid separated from the tank with explosive force when the pressure had been at 650 psi for approximately ten seconds. Plaintiff sought to prove by this experiment that the Firestone tank with a Cornelius lid was an extremely dangerous combination. The record also showed, however, that a difference of 1/32 inch existed between the size of the tested Cornelius lid and the accident lid. During the proffer, the expert testified that such a dimensional difference could affect the separation of the lid from the tank. Again, we think the trial court properly ruled that such condition during testing was substantially different from the accident condition and rendered the results of that experiment inadmissible. The foregoing determination having been made, the test run using the Firestone lid becomes inadmissible as being irrelevant. During the third day of the 1976 trial, plaintiff moved the court to permit him to conduct a test during an appropriate recess of a Cornelius lid which that defendant had been using as an exhibit. Counsel for plaintiff claimed surprise when the dimensional difference in the lid tested in April of 1973 was pointed out during the hearing. The accident lid had been lost and plaintiff wanted to use the available exact duplicate to determine during trial whether the dimensional difference was in fact significant. We believe the trial court properly sustained the objections of Firestone and Cornelius to this motion. Adequate opportunity for pre-trial discovery had been available during the pendency of the suit. A spur-of-the-moment test in the midst of the trial would have afforded defendants no reasonable time to evaluate any conclusions of plaintiff's expert made as a result of such a test nor given defendants a chance to run equivalent tests using the same part. Also, the accident lid had been available and had been tested in 1971 by the expert called as a witness by plaintiff. Consequently, we find no abuse of discretion in the trial court's action.