Opinion ID: 848701
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: mre 702 & the expert opinion testimony of steven hnat

Text: In order to provide guidance for the new trial, we address the controversy surrounding the expert testimony and the erroneous standard propounded by the Court of Appeals concerning the gate keeping role required by MRE 702. We now clarify that MRE 702 requires the trial court to ensure that each aspect of an expert witness's proffered testimony  including the data underlying the expert's theories and the methodology by which the expert draws conclusions from that data  is reliable.
MRE 702, as it existed at the time of trial, [44] provided: If the trial court determines that recognized scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise. In both its former and current incarnations, [45] MRE 702 has imposed an obligation on the trial court to ensure that any expert testimony admitted at trial is reliable. [46] While the exercise of this gatekeeper role is within a court's discretion, a trial judge may neither abandon this obligation nor perform the function inadequately. [47] Indeed, the obligation imposed by MRE 702 is reinforced by MRE 104(a), which provides that [p]reliminary questions concerning the qualification of a person to be a witness ... shall be determined by the court.... [48] The requirements of MRE 104(a) extended to the application of MRE 702 because the admission of expert testimony under this rule hinges on preliminary questions concerning qualification. For example, reference in MRE 702 to scientific evidence implies a grounding in the methods and procedures of science, and the rule's reference to knowledge connotes more than subjective belief or unsupported speculation. [49] As such, MRE 104 requires the trial court to address these preconditions before admitting expert testimony. It is well-established that the proponent of evidence bears the burden of establishing relevance and admissibility. [50] At the time this case was tried, the proponent of expert opinion evidence bore the burden of establishing admissibility according to the Davis-Frye general acceptance standard. [51] MRE 702 has since been amended explicitly to incorporate Daubert's standards of reliability. But this modification of MRE 702 changes only the factors that a court may consider in determining whether expert opinion evidence is admissible. It has not altered the court's fundamental duty of ensuring that all expert opinion testimony  regardless of whether the testimony is based on novel [52] science  is reliable. Thus, properly understood, the court's gatekeeper role is the same under Davis-Frye and Daubert. [53] Regardless of which test the court applies, the court may admit evidence only once it ensures, pursuant to MRE 702, that expert testimony meets that rule's standard of reliability. In other words, both tests require courts to exclude junk science; Daubert simply allows courts to consider more than just general acceptance in determining whether expert testimony must be excluded. This gatekeeper role applies to all stages of expert analysis. MRE 702 mandates a searching inquiry, not just of the data underlying expert testimony, but also of the manner in which the expert interprets and extrapolates from those data. Thus, it is insufficient for the proponent of expert opinion merely to show that the opinion rests on data viewed as legitimate in the context of a particular area of expertise (such as medicine). The proponent must also show that any opinion based on those data expresses conclusions reached through reliable principles and methodology. [54] Careful vetting of all aspects of expert testimony is especially important when an expert provides testimony about causation. [55] The United States Supreme Court's caveat in Joiner is persuasive: [N]othing in either Daubert or the Federal Rules of Evidence requires a district court to admit opinion evidence which is connected to existing data only by the ipse dixit of the expert. A court may conclude that there is simply too great an analytical gap between the data and the opinion proffered.[ [56] ] When a court focuses its MRE 702 inquiry on the data underlying expert opinion and neglects to evaluate the extent to which an expert extrapolates from those data in a manner consistent with Davis-Frye (or now Daubert ), it runs the risk of overlooking a yawning analytical gap between that data and the opinion expressed by an expert. [57] As a result, ostensibly legitimate data may serve as a Trojan horse that facilitates the surreptitious advance of junk science and spurious, unreliable opinions.
Both the trial court and the Court of Appeals seem unaware of the core gatekeeper principles described above. As a result, the faux medical opinion of an individual who lacked any medical education, experience, training, skill, or knowledge became the linchpin of plaintiff's case and unmistakably affected the verdict. Plaintiff's theory at trial was that the sexual harassment she encountered as defendant's employee had produced a permanent change in her brain chemistry, that this neurological change led to an increase in substance abuse and that, in the end, defendant's failure to curb sexual harassment in plaintiff's workplace would cause her to die the most painful death imaginable because of the metabolic physiological phenomena he described. [58] The theory was presented through the testimony of Mr. Hnat, a social worker, and was based on his analysis of medical records from various hospitals and clinics where plaintiff was treated for substance abuse. Mr. Hnat testified that he was a certified social worker with experience in substance abuse treatment. [59] He also testified that he had received a master's degree in psychobiology, although it was revealed after trial that this testimony was patently false. [60] Apparently influenced by Mr. Hnat's claim to have expertise in psychobiology, the trial court permitted plaintiff to introduce medical records through Mr. Hnat's testimony. Before the admission of records from Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Center, defense counsel raised the following objection: Your Honor, I object to their admission. Certainly, with regard to this witness, he is not a medical doctor to review all of these other records and testify about them. He is a social worker and he is competent to testify about his own records. It is just not appropriate. The foundation hasn't been laid for the introduction of those records, certainly not pursuant to this individual. The trial court rejected defendant's argument that Mr. Hnat was unqualified to articulate an opinion based on records compiled when plaintiff sought treatment for substance abuse. However, the record in this case reveals that, irrespective of whether the medical records detailing plaintiff's substance abuse treatment were admissible, Mr. Hnat was asked to interpret those records and thereby render an opinion that he was wholly unqualified to give. For example, the following exchange took place during plaintiff's direct examination of Mr. Hnat: Q. Will [plaintiff] be able to work in light of what you know about her condition as recently as yesterday? Will she continue to be physically able to work? A. No. Her medical complications at this point have progressed to the point where she is going to be physically unable to work fairly soon. She is going to have increasing hospitalizations most likely to deal with the cirrhosis, the pancreatitis, she may need transplants at some point, she may need any range of radical medical intervention. So her ability to work physically is severely impaired at this point even though right now she is functioning okay. There is going to be increasing problems associated with this medical condition. It's unavoidable. People have those severe complications must work [sic]. Q. Do you have any idea what was the cause of her problems as they exist in this lady as late as yesterday? A. Alcoholism, major depression precipitated by work stresses, and sexual harassment. That is the bottom line. Q. What do you mean that is the bottom line? A. I mean that is what happened here, that is what is killing this person, probably has killed her as far as you can tell at this point. I wouldn't bet on her living very long. She might, if she gets treatment. There's a chance. If she doesn't get treatment, she'll die fairly soon. [Emphasis added.] The impact of Mr. Hnat's medical opinion on the verdict rendered in this case could not have been more pronounced. Especially noteworthy is the fact that, during closing arguments, plaintiff's counsel encouraged the jury to treat Mr. Hnat's opinion as an actual medical prognosis: You heard testimony, and I don't think Mr. Hnat was being glib when he testified about the fact that although he is not an omniscient, he is not a sooth sayer, he has read her death certificate. Her death certificate, her death will come sooner or later, none of us can know for sure. You will consider this in a haze of alcohol. She will die either in a violent event if she drives, or she will die of the effects of alcohol on her body. She will have chronic hepatitis, in other words, a disease of the liver, cirrhosis, if you will. She will have dehydration as Mr. Hnat testified to. She will have metabolic acidosis that will slowly put her into a coma. She will have increased red blood cells, or low blood cells to fight infection. She will have chronic pancreatitis. One of the most painful diseases known to medical science, inflammation of her pancreas. And she has suffered all of these during hospitalizations, as Mr. Hnat has testified to. She will suffer severe abdominal pain, and she will die. And she will not live out her life. At one point during closing arguments, plaintiff's counsel even told the jury that plaintiff had to leave the courtroom for a portion of his closing argument because the prognosis that she has for her life was too grim for her to hear. [61] As these excerpts reveal, Mr. Hnat unquestionably used the content of plaintiff's treatment records to render an opinion that required medical expertise. He speculated about plaintiff's impending physical inability to work, testified about the type of medical complications that plaintiff would soon experience, predicted the cause of her death, and gave testimony concerning plaintiff's life expectancy. Mr. Hnat expressed his opinion on physiological disease, cause of death, and plaintiff's lifespan. Yet there was no evidence or showing that Mr. Hnat was qualified by training, experience, or knowledge to render such opinions or interpret medical records that would arguably support such a diagnosis or prognosis. There was, in other words, no evidence that Mr. Hnat was qualified to testify that defendant's actions concerning workplace harassment caused neurological and physiological changes in plaintiff and shortened her life. Plaintiff's arguments in support of Mr. Hnat's testimony and the Court of Appeals' acceptance of those arguments can be based only on a misinterpretation of MRE 702. Plaintiff argued, for example, that Mr. Hnat was qualified to interpret plaintiff's medical records because he is a treater. In order for Mr. Hnat to provide an admissible opinion interpreting medical records for purposes other than those related to the expertise of social workers, plaintiff bore the burden of showing that Mr. Hnat was qualified by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education in medicine. Given the absence of such evidence, plaintiff failed to carry the burden of establishing the admissibility of Mr. Hnat's medical opinions, regardless of the admissibility of the records that ostensibly informed this opinion. Likewise, we reject the Court of Appeals' argument that the `mere fact' that Mr. Hnat `is not a medical practitioner does not render him unqualified as an expert witness' because [a]ny limitations in Mr. Hnat's qualifications are relevant to the weight, not the admissibility, of his testimony. [62] The Court of Appeals' observation that one need not be a medical practitioner to testify as an expert is little more than a truism. And we do not disagree with the proposition that, in some circumstances, an expert's qualifications pertain to weight rather than to the admissibility of the expert's opinion. [63] That is not to say, however, that any issue of qualification relates to weight rather than admissibility. As shown, MRE 702 establishes preconditions for the admission of expert opinion. Such testimony must be rooted in recognized scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge  and must assist the trier of fact. The burden is on the party offering the expert to satisfy the preconditions established by MRE 702. [64] Where the subject of the proffered testimony is far beyond the scope of an individual's expertise  for example, where a party offers an expert in economics to testify about biochemistry  that testimony is inadmissible under MRE 702. In such cases, it would be inaccurate to say that the expert's lack of expertise or experience merely relates to the weight of her testimony. An expert who lacks knowledge in the field at issue cannot assist the trier of fact. Here, according to plaintiff's counsel, Mr. Hnat gave plaintiff a prognosis on the basis of his interpretation of records from medical and treatment facilities. The medical prognosis of a social worker who has no training in medicine and lacks any demonstrated ability to interpret medical records meaningfully is of little assistance to the trier of fact. We also reject the Court of Appeals' assertion that Mr. Hnat's medical testimony on the physiological effects of alcoholism and depression was admissible because these effects are common knowledge. [65] As the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan has aptly stated: [E]xpert testimony is not admissible unless it will be helpful to the fact finder. Such testimony is unhelpful when it is unreliable or irrelevant, as the [Supreme] Court observed in Daubert, ... and also when it merely deals with a proposition that is not beyond the ken of common knowledge. [ [66] ] To justify the admission of an expert opinion on the basis of the belief that no expertise is necessary to render such an opinion is to fail to give any effect to MRE 702, and, indeed, to turn that rule on its head. The previous MRE 702 allowed expert opinion testimony only [i]f the trial court determines that recognized scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.... Thus, the Court of Appeals panel's rationalization that Mr. Hnat's expert opinion testimony was harmlessly admitted because it was based on common knowledge is inconsistent with the requirements of MRE 702. Unless information requiring expert interpretation actually goes through the crucible of analysis by a qualified expert, it is of little assistance to the jury and therefore inadmissible under MRE 702. We direct the trial judge on retrial to ensure that expert opinion testimony meets the purpose expressed in MRE 702  that of assisting the trier of fact through the introduction of reliable scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge.