Opinion ID: 894743
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Milner

Text: Alan Milner is a professional engineer with degrees in metallurgy and engineering. He examined the tire microscopically and with x-rays. He describes his specialty as failure analysis, and has conducted failure analyses of a wide variety of products. In Martinez, we discussed some of Milner's testimony, see 977 S.W.2d at 332-34, but that decision does not address a challenge to Milner's qualifications or a challenge to the reliability of his expert testimony. [10] In the present case, Milner devoted most of his testimony to explaining why he did not believe the nail hole or under-inflation had caused the tire failure. This testimony is legally insufficient to establish, by a process of elimination, the existence of a manufacturing defect that caused the failure, as discussed further below. At the end of his direct testimony, Milner specifically addressed the existence of a manufacturing defect. He briefly opined that, as evidenced by polishing, and through [e]xamination of the fracture surface, the tire developed belt separation early in its life and there were areas of the tire which were never bonded initially when it was made. This testimony, comprising about one and one-half pages of transcript including questions and an objection, is legally insufficient to establish a manufacturing defect. These parting words relating to the cause of the tread separation were unreliable proof of a manufacturing defect. Milner did little more than throw out terms like polishing and fracture surface when stating, in conclusory fashion, that the belt separation must have originated at the plant. This testimony was subjective, and unsupported by any measurements, testing, references to peer-reviewed studies, proof that Milner's observational techniques are generally accepted in the relevant scientific community as a valid method of identifying a manufacturing defect, or evidence that his techniques are employed in non-judicial contexts. This testimony was fundamentally unsupported and therefore of no assistance to the jury. See Havner, 953 S.W.2d at 712. Essentially, the only basis for the link between the Milner's observations and his conclusions was his own say-so. See Ramirez, 159 S.W.3d at 912-13 (Hecht, J., concurring).