Opinion ID: 4588098
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Factual Background and District Court Rulings

Text: Before trial, Plaintiffs proposed to have Dr. Rogers testify as an expert witness about the environmental impact of Kinlaw Farms’ operations. They obtained permission for Dr. 116 Rogers and his associates to take air, manure, and lagoon samples at Kinlaw Farms. Dr. Rogers’ team also collected physical samples at some of Plaintiffs’ properties. One aspect of Dr. Rogers’ proposed testimony derived from testing samples taken from the exteriors of three Plaintiffs’ homes “for the presence of the genetic sequence known as pig2bac.” J.A. 4104. 14 Dr. Rogers stated that this genetic marker is “unique to pig feces,” and thus its presence identifies “the presence of pig feces” in an environment. J.A. 4104–05. In his view, finding pig2bac on the exterior of a residence indicated that hog feces had been present there, and that the presence of hog feces served as a “physical representation of odor” given that the chemical properties associated with pig feces were well-documented to be odorous. J.A. 4110. In short, Dr. Rogers opined that evidence of pig2bac served as a reliable proxy for evidence of odor. Moreover, he asserted that because “pig feces has to be in relatively high concentrations to facilitate . . . detection” of pig2bac, a detectable presence of pig2bac indicated the presence of comparatively higher levels of pig feces and resulting odor. J.A. 4105. Based on this data, Dr. Rogers opined “within a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, that [Kinlaw Farms had] the ability to cause and the effect of causing a substantial interference with Plaintiffs’ use and enjoyment of their property in the form of significant annoyance and material physical discomfort.” J.A. 4110. 14 Dr. Rogers took samples from Tammy Lloyd’s residence in October 2016; in addition, samples were taken from Joyce McKiver and Delois Lewis’ joint residence in November 2016 and from the McKoy home sometime later. All of the samples contained pig2bac. Samples were not taken from the residences of the remaining Plaintiffs. 117 In other words, Dr. Rogers represented that pig2bac was an objective measure of the presence of hog odor on Plaintiffs’ property. Murphy-Brown moved to exclude Dr. Rogers’ testimony from trial, arguing that he lacked the qualifications to be certified as an odor expert, that he had used flawed methods to collect field samples, and that he lacked the scientific foundation needed to offer his opinion about the existence of a nuisance because of his reliance on the unreliable and unproven proposition that pig2bac could serve as a proxy for hog odor. In support of its motion, Murphy-Brown offered a 66-page declaration from its microbiology expert, Dr. Jennifer Clancy, in which she identified flaws in Dr. Rogers’ sample collection protocols and questioned the validity of his use of pig2bac as a proxy for hog odor. Murphy-Brown requested a hearing to address whether Dr. Rogers was Daubert qualified. The district court denied the motion without a hearing, observing that it “simply [could not] honor” a request for oral argument on the motion and that it had reviewed the parties’ written submissions related to the motion. J.A. 6183. Reiterating that it had “read all [the] materials that [had] been submitted with regard to this issue” that morning, it found Dr. Rogers to be “an expert in environmental engineering, . . . animal waste management engineering and technology[,] and microbiology.” J.A. 6185. The sum total of its explanation for its decision was: that in carrying out its Daubert responsibilities, that [Dr. Rogers’] proposed testimony is both reliable and relevant and that the objections and questions regarding his testimony go to the weight and may be covered on crossexamination except insofar as defendant contends that some questions are being – that he may be asked questions outside of the field of his expertise, and the Court obviously is confronted with that question with every expert witness and there will be questions that will be posed to the witness that 118 defendant will contend do not fit the area of expertise which the Court has found him to be in. J.A. 6185–86. Benefiting from this ruling, Plaintiffs called Dr. Rogers “to talk about odor from industrial hog operations.” J.A. 6194. While his testimony covered a host of topics, of particular relevance to this appeal, Dr. Rogers testified that what humans perceive as “hog odor” is actually “a very large mixture, very complex mixture of chemicals that are in [hog] waste treatment systems. So several hundred volatile organic compounds – hydrogen sulfide gas, ammonia gas, for example – and the particles that might carry them.” J.A. 6194. He described the relationship between his expertise and hog odor as knowing “how those [chemicals] are generated from waste management systems . . . and also how those types of particles and gases might move in the environment” until a person “experience[d] them.” J.A. 6194. In Dr. Rogers’ view, testing for hog odor directly is a subjective and unreliable assessment for two reasons. First, humans experience odor differently and therefore measure and perceive it differently. For this reason, he asserted that self-reports and even measurements taken from an olfactometer were too subjective because they required someone to “smell something and then they make a call on it.” J.A. 7204. Second, he opined that testing for the presence of a particular chemical to confirm the presence of hog odor ran its own risks given that hog odor is a complex chemical compound and no one representative chemical could be tested so as to reliably confirm the presence of hog odor. He explained that “any one of [the chemicals comprising hog odor] is extremely smelly” 119 and if one or more are removed, “it’s not likely to change the odor.” J.A. 6206. Consequently, chemicals known to be sometimes present in hog odor may not be present on a particular occasion despite the presence of something identifiable as hog odor. Given these perceived problems with measuring hog odor directly, Dr. Rogers instead elected to rely on the presence of the DNA sequence pig2bac as a means of objectively—but indirectly—testing for the presence of hog odor. Consistent with the view set out in his expert report, Dr. Rogers explained his basis for using pig2bac as a proxy for odor, the results of his investigation of Plaintiffs’ properties outlined earlier, and his opinion that Kinlaw Farms was operating as a nuisance under North Carolina law. When asked to provide “the one thing” he wanted the jurors to take away from his testimony, he replied that he “brought [them] physical evidence that shows that the feces from this operation is moving out into the neighborhood and is impacting – it is a physical marker that shows this operation is impacting the neighbors.” J.A. 7246–47. Of course, Dr. Rogers did not testify without resistance from Murphy-Brown. He was subject to extensive cross-examination that delved into the novelty of his using pig2bac as a proxy for odor. He was also questioned about his decision not to test for certain odorous chemicals in the air despite the ability to do so, about the lack of data documenting the presence and quantity of pig2bac at each plaintiff’s residence, and about the lack of data concerning pig2bac’s general prevalence in the region considering the number of hog farms in eastern North Carolina. In addition, Murphy-Brown called its counter-expert, Dr. Clancy, to testify about some of the flaws she’d identified in Dr. Rogers’ collection protocols, which she said may have led to contaminated results. 120 Murphy-Brown again challenged the admission of Dr. Rogers’ testimony in its motion for a new trial, and the district court summarily denied the motion.