Opinion ID: 199964
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: negligence claims arising out of 1994 activities

Text: 14 In order to succeed on a claim of negligence at trial, appellants were required to establish that (1) Bobst owed them a duty of care, (2) Bobst breached that duty, and (3) Bobst's breach of the duty caused the injury to appellants. See Davis v. Westwood Group, 420 Mass. 739, 652 N.E.2d 567, 569 (Mass.1995). The dispute between the parties has centered on whether Bobst had a duty to synchronize the voltages of the various components of the press and, if so, whether Bobst's failure to do so was the cause of the explosion that injured appellants. Appellants ask us now to find first that the magistrate judge abused his discretion in excluding testimony by their expert witness, which was directed to the issues of duty and causation. Second, appellants argue that, even without the expert testimony, they had made out a prima facie case of negligence that should have been submitted to the jury.
15 At trial, appellants offered testimony by Harwood to support their claims of negligence by Bobst in its activities relating to the 1994 upgrade of the press. Harwood's testimony would have addressed, first, the scope of the work assigned to Bobst by Avery, and, second, the cause of the explosion in the gas dryer. On the first issue, the magistrate judge held that Harwood's testimony as to what the Bobst technicians' work orders meant was irrelevant because the terms should be interpreted from the perspective of a field technician and not from the perspective of an engineer. As to the second issue, the magistrate judge held that Harwood's testimony with respect to the press was not reliable because the testimony is not based on a sufficient knowledge of the machine. 16 Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence assigns to the trial judge the responsibility for ensuring that an expert's testimony as to scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge both rests on a reliable foundation and is relevant to the task at hand. Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 597, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993); see also Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137, 147-49, 119 S.Ct. 1167, 143 L.Ed.2d 238 (1999) (holding that Daubert applies to expert testimony as to technical and other specialized knowledge in addition to scientific knowledge). The ultimate purpose of the Daubert inquiry is to determine whether the testimony of the expert would be helpful to the jury in resolving a fact in issue. Cipollone v. Yale Indus. Prod., Inc., 202 F.3d 376, 380 (1st Cir.2000). We accord the trial court broad deference in its determination as to the reliability and relevance of expert testimony, reviewing the determination only for abuse of discretion. See Gen. Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 143, 118 S.Ct. 512, 139 L.Ed.2d 508 (1997); Diefenbach v. Sheridan Transp., 229 F.3d 27, 29 (1st Cir.2000). Appellants nevertheless urge us to find that the magistrate judge abused his discretion in excluding Harwood's testimony. We decline to do so. First, a review of the extensive voir dire hearings held by the magistrate judge establishes that Harwood showed little knowledge in the fields of fires and explosions. Second, although we are mindful of appellants' position that Harwood's expertise in electronic controls, and not in explosions, constituted his essential contribution to explicating this industrial accident, the voir dire hearing transcript is replete with substantial challenges to Harwood's knowledge of the electronic controls of the specific press in question here. In this context, we cannot say that the magistrate judge abused his discretion in excluding Harwood's testimony as to causation. 6 Finally, on the question of the proper perspective from which the work orders were to be interpreted, where the record indicates that the work on the R-820 and the S-1480 was assigned by Avery employees with backgrounds as electricians or in electronics, carried out by Bobst employees with similar training and experience, and approved by the same Avery employees, testimony by an engineer as to the meaning of the terms would have been of questionable relevan[ce] to the task at hand. Daubert, 509 U.S. at 597, 113 S.Ct. 2786. Again, we cannot say that the magistrate judge's decision to exclude Harwood's testimony on this issue was an abuse of discretion. We therefore affirm the magistrate judge's ruling.
17 The third ruling appellants contest is the grant in favor of Bobst of judgment as a matter of law, pursuant to Rule 50(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, on the negligence claims arising out of Bobst's work on the press in 1994. Appellants argue that, even without the expert testimony, they made out a prima facie case of negligence that should have been submitted to the jury. 7 The magistrate judge found that the appellants had failed to introduce sufficient evidence as to the duty and causation elements of their negligence claim. The magistrate judge ruled that the jury could find that a proximate cause of the explosion was the web slack, leading to the ink-drenched web entering the dryer. However, the magistrate judge found (1) that appellants had failed to prove that Bobst had an obligation to correct any voltage problems the press may have had and (2) that, even if Bobst had an obligation to correct any problems, appellants offered no evidence that the un-synchronized voltage was a proximate cause of the web slack. 18 We review the grant of a motion for judgment as a matter of law de novo. See Brennan v. GTE Gov't Sys. Corp., 150 F.3d 21, 25 (1st Cir.1998). Applying the same standard as the district court, we examine the evidence and all fair inferences in the light most favorable to the non-movant and determine whether the non-movant has offered more than a mere scintilla of evidence, warranting the submission of the issue to the jury. Katz v. City Metal Co., Inc., 87 F.3d 26, 28 (1st Cir.1996) (internal quotations omitted). We `may not consider the credibility of witnesses, resolve conflicts in testimony, or evaluate the weight of the evidence.' Id. (quoting Richmond Steel, Inc. v. Puerto Rican Am. Ins. Co., 954 F.2d 19, 22 (1st Cir.1992)). We will affirm the district court only if, applying these standards, the evidence does not permit a reasonable jury to find in favor of appellants. Brennan, 150 F.3d at 26. 19 On the question of duty, appellants urge us to find that the magistrate judge took too narrow a view of Bobst's role in the upgrade of the press. The magistrate judge found insufficient evidence that Bobst had any obligation to work on the tachometer in the outfeed, which, in the state in which it had been left, allegedly would have sent a voltage signal to devices in the S-1480 and/or R-820 infeed that was inconsistent with the signals generated by those devices. Appellants' argument is essentially that, whether or not Bobst had an obligation to work on other tachometers within the press, they had a duty to install the S-1480 and R-820 infeed onto Press 8 and to check out, debug, and start-up the press and [i]n so doing, they needed to ensure that all the components of the press worked together electronically. Appellants point out that Bobst had been provided with the electronic drawings that came with the used equipment and contend that Bobst should have been alerted to a potential problem concerning the compatibility of the S-1480 and R-820 electronics with the rest of the press. 20 We find that appellants have not produced more than a mere scintilla of evidence in support of their theory of duty and that they therefore cannot withstand a motion for judgment as a matter of law. 8 First, the record does not support the argument that Bobst had an obligation to synchronize the electronic controls of the press. Appellants have directed us to several segments in the depositions and trial testimony that allegedly support the position that Bobst had an obligation to ensure that the electronic systems, as a whole, were compatible. Much of the cited testimony, however, simply stands for the proposition that, in order for the press to run properly, the electronics on the various devices had to be synchronized, and not for the proposition that Bobst was the party with the obligation to ensure that these electronics were synchronized. Even where the testimony suggests that Bobst may have had an obligation to check out the electronics on the S-1480 9 and the R-820 infeed, we find nothing that could be considered more than a mere scintilla of evidence to the effect that Bobst was required to synchronize the voltage signals on these systems with voltage signals coming from other devices on the press. 10 21 Second, even acknowledging that the record of depositions and testimony is voluminous and the issue at hand complex, so that more than a mere scintilla of evidence suggesting appellants' theory of duty could conceivably be uncovered, 11 we find that any duty Bobst may have had as to the electronics of the system ended when Avery discharged the Bobst technicians on July 3. We are not persuaded by appellants' argument that Bobst should have noticed the voltage problem and worked to correct it from the beginning of its work, so that it makes no difference that Bobst may have been terminated before the completion of the work. To the contrary — and regardless of how the parties may have understood the terms debug and start-up in the Bobst work orders — the record cannot be read to support any position other than that, when the Bobst technicians were discharged on July 3, Avery recognized that the work on the press was not complete, that the press was not ready to be used, and that Avery would be responsible for making sure the press functioned as a whole. 12 22 Because we agree with the magistrate judge that appellants have not presented more than a mere scintilla of evidence in support of a duty on the part of Bobst to synchronize the voltage signals coming from the various devices on the press, we need not reach the question of whether they presented sufficient evidence on the question of causation. 13 We affirm the grant of judgment as a matter of law on the negligence claims against Bobst arising out of its role in the 1994 upgrade.