Opinion ID: 200085
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Availability of Appellate Review for Diaz's Challenge to the Admission of Expert Testimony

Text: 38 Diaz argues that the district court improperly admitted expert testimony by Dorsey and Haynes on the contested issue of causation of the fire. Specifically, he claims that this expert testimony did not satisfy the three numbered criteria in Rule 702. The government, however, maintains that Diaz failed to properly preserve this claim below, thus losing his right to raise that issue on appeal. 39 As a general rule, we review a trial court's decision to admit or exclude expert testimony under an abuse of discretion standard. See General Electric Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 138-39, 118 S.Ct. 512, 139 L.Ed.2d 508 (1997). However, Rule 103(a) of the Federal Rules of Evidence provides that a claim of error may not be predicated on the admission of evidence unless a timely objection is made — stating the specific ground of objection, if the specific ground was not apparent from the context — and the admitted evidence affects a substantial right of the party. Fed. R.Evid. 103(a). As we have previously stated, litigants must raise a timely objection to the validity or reliability of expert testimony under Daubert in order to preserve a challenge on appeal to the admissibility of that evidence. See United States v. Gilbert, 181 F.3d 152, 162-63 (1st Cir. 1999) (declining to consider Daubert validity challenge to admitted expert testimony where no objection was made to the trial court on that basis); Cortes-Irizarry v. Corporacion Insular De Seguros, 111 F.3d 184, 189 (1st Cir.1997) ([W]e can envision few, if any, cases in which an appellate court would venture to superimpose a Daubert ruling on a cold, poorly developed record when neither the parties nor the nisi prius court has had a meaningful opportunity to mull the question.). However, these statements about the appellate consequences of failing to make a timely objection to the admission of expert testimony are qualified by Fed.R.Evid. 103(d): Nothing in this rule precludes taking notice of plain errors affecting substantial rights although they were not brought to the attention of the court. The consequence of a party's failure to make a timely objection to the admission of expert testimony is plain error review, not the complete loss of any right to review. 5 See Macsenti v. Becker, 237 F.3d 1223, 1230-31 (10th Cir.2001) (reviewing admission of expert testimony for plain error where objection as to reliability under Daubert not timely made); McKnight v. Johnson Controls, Inc., 36 F.3d 1396, 1407 (8th Cir.1994) (employing plain error review where objection asserting lack of foundation fail[ed] to raise any question about the scientific validity of the principles and methodology underlying [witness'] testimony). 40