Opinion ID: 795250
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Expert Testimony and Causation

Text: 25 To establish causation in a common law negligence action, a plaintiff generally must show that the defendant's conduct was a substantial factor in bringing about the harm. Restatement 2d of Torts § 431(a); cf. Derdiarian v. Felix Contracting Corp., 51 N.Y.2d 308, 315, 414 N.E.2d 666, 670, 434 N.Y.S.2d 166, 170 (1980) (To carry the burden of proving a prima facie case, the plaintiff must generally show that the defendant's negligence was a substantial cause of the events which produced the injury.). Under the federal common law of FELA actions, see Morant v. LIRR, 66 F.3d 518, 522 (2d Cir.1995), though, the plaintiff carries a lighter burden. Williams v. Long Island R.R. Co., 196 F.3d 402, 406 (2d Cir.1999) (The Supreme Court has said, based on the explicit language of the statute, that with respect to causation, a relaxed standard applies in FELA cases.). Thus, the test of a jury case in a FELA action is simply whether the proofs justify with reason the conclusion that employer negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury or death for which damages are sought. Rogers v. Mo. Pac. R.R. Co., 352 U.S. 500, 506, 77 S.Ct. 443, 1 L.Ed.2d 493 (1957). 26 The LIRR argues that the question of whether Tufariello's exposure to the sound of train horns caused his hearing loss is a technical issue[] that requires expert testimony. Appellee's Br. at 10. See Fed.R.Evid. 701 (prohibiting non-expert witnesses from offering opinions or making inferences based on scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge within the scope of Rule 702). We disagree. We think that our decision in Ulfik, supra, is controlling on this point. 27 In Ulfik, the plaintiff was an employee of the Metro-North Railroad. While working at Grand Central Station, in New York City, Ulfik fell down a flight of stairs as a result of dizziness allegedly caused by his having inhaled paint and solvent fumes in the railroad tunnels a few days earlier. He brought an action for negligence under FELA. In reversing the district court's grant of judgment as a matter of law in favor of the defendant at the close of the plaintiff's case-in-chief, we concluded that the trier of fact could reasonably determine, without expert testimony, that prolonged exposure to paint fumes would cause headache, nausea, and dizziness. Ulfik, 77 F.3d at 59-60. 28 The evidence Tufariello proffered to the district court here is analogous. Here, as in Ulfik, there is a generally understood causal connection between physical phenomena—in this case, very loud sounds, which we refer to colloquially as deafening 10 —and the alleged injury that would be obvious to laymen. Simpson v. Northeast Ill. Reg'l Commuter R.R. Corp., 957 F.Supp. 136, 138 (N.D.Ill.1997). And here, as there, the right of the jury to decide the issue of causation must be most liberally viewed. Marchica v. Long Island R.R. Co., 31 F.3d 1197, 1207 (2d Cir.1994) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 11 We therefore think that Tufariello's claim—like Ulfik's—may be decided by a factfinder even in the absence of expert testimony. 29 In contending otherwise, LIRR relies on two toxic tort cases. In Wills v. Amerada Hess Corp., 379 F.3d 32 (2d Cir.2004), we agreed with the district court's exclusion of the plaintiff's expert testimony because it failed to include scientific evidence that could prove the necessary link between benzene exposure and squamous cell carcinoma. Id. at 37. Similarly, in Simpson, supra, the district court granted summary judgment to the defendant because the plaintiff had failed to offer expert testimony to establish that his exposure to particular chemicals was the cause of his migraine headaches. Simpson, 957 F.Supp. at 137-38. The court noted that [e]xpert testimony usually is necessary to establish a causal connection between an injury and its source unless the connection is a kind that would be obvious to laymen, such as a broken leg from being struck by an automobile. Id. at 138 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 30 The causal link Tufariello seeks to establish between hearing loss and repeated exposure to noise so loud that it causes physical pain or ear-ringing is, as we have noted, widely known and, so far as we are aware, not the subject of scientific dispute. 12 It is, indeed, not so very far from the connection between a broken leg and being struck by an automobile, the example used by the Simpson court as an instance in which expert testimony is unnecessary. Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Toxic contamination cases such as Wills and Simpson, in which genuine doubt exists as to whether exposure to any amount of a particular chemical could cause the plaintiff's injury, are therefore unhelpful to the LIRR. 13