Opinion ID: 2793905
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Dr. Eagar’s Opinion Testimony.

Text: Dr. Eagar is a professor of materials engineering and engineering systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During a thirty-year academic career, he -3- has published hundreds of articles on metallurgy and arc physics; his expertise in those fields is undisputed. In its motion to exclude, Omega argued that this expertise did not make Dr. Eagar qualified to opine that TracPipe caused the fire in the Kosteckis’ home, or that the product was defectively designed. In its Memorandum opposing Omega’s motion, AAIC advised that Dr. Eagar has “four sets” of opinions: (1) Metal conductors, such as CSST, can be damaged in one of two ways: resistive heating and arcing. From a design perspective, CSST is vulnerable to perforation caused by both resistive heating and arcing; (2) Metallurgical review of the Kostecki CSST holes confirm they were caused by an arcing event generated by lightning between the CSST and an aluminum object; (3) When there is an arcing event and the thin wall of the CSST is compromised, gas will escape and can be ignited by the arcing event . . .; (4) Bonding will not protect CSST from lightning induced failure as is suggested by Omega Flex. The district court ruled that Dr. Eagar may testify as to the matters within his areas of expertise -- metallurgy and arc physics; it therefore denied Omega’s motion to exclude opinion testimony as to fire causation and the efficacy of bonding. The court granted the motion to exclude opinion testimony regarding “product design and warnings” because “Eagar has specifically disavowed such expertise and his areas of expertise bear no more than a remote relationship to product design and warnings.” The ruling as to product warnings is not at issue on appeal. At trial, Dr. Eagar testified at length. Based on our review, that testimony included all four of the above-quoted “sets” of opinions. Dr. Eagar testified that TracPipe is “too thin” -- “almost exactly 10 percent of the thickness of [traditional] -4- black iron pipe” -- and therefore vulnerable to perforation by arcing because the energy required to melt metal is proportional to the metal’s thickness. Based on his examination of the TracPipe in the Kostecki home, Dr. Eagar opined that the two holes in the TracPipe were caused by lightning-generated arcing; that the fire started when lightning ignited propane gas escaping from the holes; and that the bonding recommended by Omega will not protect CSST from such lightning-induced failures. 1. On appeal, AAIC argues the district court nonetheless committed clear and prejudicial abuse of discretion by barring Dr. Eagar “from offering at trial his expert opinions concerning material selection and the design of . . . TracPipe.” In response, Omega notes that “AAIC never identifies for this Court precisely what opinions Dr. Eagar was allegedly erroneously precluded from offering at trial.” We agree. To preserve a claim that the district court erred in excluding evidence, “a party informs the court of its substance by an offer of proof, unless the substance was apparent from the context.” Fed. R. Evid. 103(a)(2). If the court “rules definitively” before trial, “a party need not renew an objection or offer of proof to preserve a claim of error for appeal.” Rule 103(b). Here, the district court’s only “definitive” pretrial ruling was that Dr. Eagar may not offer opinion testimony “relating to product design.” As we have noted, he did offer such an opinion, testifying to the thickness of the CSST in TracPipe and opining that it was “too thin.” So what was excluded? When Omega raised this issue at the hearing on AAIC’s motion for new trial, counsel admitted that, during trial, AAIC waived an offer of proof on the issue of “black iron pipe compared to the CSST,” but argued it preserved the claim of error in excluding “No. 6, that’s Dr. Eagar’s testimony referring to a defect in the CSST.” That reference was sufficient for the district court to deny AAIC’s motion on the merits. But on appeal, AAIC neither identified nor explained “No. 6” to this court. Indeed, AAIC made no attempt to explain what opinion testimony was excluded until pages 5-6 of its Reply Brief, where counsel articulated what Dr. Eagar would have -5- opined, without citation to the trial or appellate record. For this reason alone, the district court’s evidentiary ruling must be affirmed. As in Potts v. Benjamin, 882 F.2d 1320, 1325 (8th Cir. 1989), where the district court also allowed an expert to testify on a number of topics, “[w]e have no basis upon which to conclude that the District Court’s ruling affected a substantial right . . . because [AAIC] made no offer of proof at trial, nor is it contextually apparent, what [its] expert’s testimony would have been . . . had he been permitted to testify on the [excluded] subject.” Accord Cavataio v. City of Bella Villa, 570 F.3d 1015, 1021 (8th Cir. 2009) (“This failure to make an offer of proof constitutes a failure to preserve the issue for our review.”). 2. Despite this failure to preserve, we have combed AAIC’s 1124-page Appendix looking for excluded opinions by Dr. Eagar “relating to product design.” The nearest we found was in the Conclusion to his lengthy supplemental report to AAIC counsel: “In my opinion, CSST is so thin that it is unreasonably dangerous unless all joints contain electrical jumpers and the CSST is grounded every few feet to a suitable lightning ground strap.” Even if properly preserved, we conclude the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding this conclusory opinion. First, in deposition testimony, Dr. Eagar denied expertise in the design and installation of CSST systems. As the district court noted, we have repeatedly upheld the exclusion or reversed the admission of expert design testimony that went beyond the expert’s expertise. See Weisgram v. Marley Co., 169 F.3d 514, 520-21 (8th Cir. 1999) (affirming the exclusion of a metallurgist’s design defect opinion because he had no personal experience and “no metallurgic reason for his conclusion”), aff’d, 528 U.S. 440 (2000);2 accord Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel Corp. v. Beelman River Terminals, Inc., 254 F.3d 706, 715 (8th Cir. 2001); Khoury v. Philips Med. Sys., 614 F.3d 888, 893 (8th Cir. 2010); Anderson v. Raymond Corp., 340 F.3d 520, 523 (8th Cir. 2003); 2 Our ruling on this Daubert issue was among the questions presented for review, but the Supreme Court granted certiorari only on a procedural issue. See Joint Pet. Writ Cert., 1999 WL 33611408 (U.S. Jul. 23, 1999); 527 U.S. 1069 (1999). -6- Dancy v. Hyster Co., 127 F.3d 649, 651-52 (8th Cir. 1997), cert. denied, 523 U.S. 1004 (1998); Krueger v. Johnson & Johnson Prof., Inc., 66 F. App’x 661, 662 (8th Cir. 2003); see also Smith v. Rasmussen, 249 F.3d 755, 758-59 (8th Cir. 2001). Second, Dr. Eagar opines that TracPipe is unreasonably dangerous unless grounded differently. This opinion does not address the product’s design. Rather, it squarely addresses the ultimate issue of whether TracPipe was an unreasonably dangerous product. While such expert testimony is permissible, see Fed. R. Evid. 704(a), “courts must guard against invading the province of the jury on a question which the jury was entirely capable of answering without the benefit of expert opinion.” Robertson,148 F.3d at 908 (quotation omitted). The district court concluded that, in the absence of specific design expertise, Dr. Eagar’s conclusory opinion “will provide little assistance to the jury,” as Rule 702(a) requires, and “may run afoul” of Rule 403 if the jury affords it more weight than warranted because of Dr. Eagar’s expertise in other areas.3 Third, in light of the detailed scientific and causation opinions that Dr. Eagar did express to the jury, including that CSST is “too thin” to resist indirect lightning strikes, the exclusion of his ultimate opinion was not a prejudicial abuse of discretion. See Shelton v. Kennedy Funding, Inc., 622 F.3d 943, 959 (8th Cir. 2010). AAIC no doubt wanted the prestigious Dr. Eagar to opine that TracPipe was unreasonably dangerous because his scientific testimony based on metallurgy and arc physics established it was too thin. But any equally prestigious academic “expert” provided 3 However, despite excluding Dr. Eagar’s ultimate opinion on defective design, the district court denied Omega summary judgment and judgment as a matter of law, because Dr. Eagar’s testimony as to causation based on the vulnerability of thin CSST to lightning, combined with the testimony of other experts regarding the cause of the fire, provided “evidence from which the jury could have determined that the product design was defective.” Thus, AAIC was able to submit its design defect and unreasonably dangerous claims to the jury. -7- with Dr. Eagar’s scientific testimony could have expressed the same ultimate opinion. “[N]othing in either Daubert or the Federal Rules of Evidence requires a district court to admit opinion evidence that is connected to existing data only by the ipse dixit of the expert.” Gen. Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 146 (1997). The district court’s careful parsing of the expert opinions that Dr. Eagar could reliably provide for the jury was a proper exercise of its gate-keeping function “to ensure the reliability and relevancy of expert testimony.” Kumho Tire, 526 U.S. at 152.