Opinion ID: 663165
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Paul Gouty's Testimony

Text: 45 MoPac next contends the district court erred by allowing Paul Gouty, the Turnbulls' signals expert, to testify. MoPac objected to his lack of credentials, and to testimony which it considered overly speculative. 46 Federal Rule of Evidence 702 provides the standard for the admissibility of expert testimony in federal court: 47 If 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. 48 Fed.R.Evid. 702. Doubts about whether an expert's testimony will be useful should generally be resolved in favor of admissibility unless there are strong factors such as time or surprise favoring exclusions. The jury is intelligent enough ... to ignore what is unhelpful in its deliberations. J. Weinstein & M. Berger, Weinstein's Evidence, p 702, p. 702-30 (1988) (internal citations omitted). 49 After carefully reviewing MoPac's objection to Gouty's credentials, we find no prejudicial error in the district court's decision allowing him to testify. As to the substance of Gouty's testimony, including his conclusion that the gates did not work properly on the night of the crash, [t]he burden is on opposing counsel through cross-examination to explore and expose any weaknesses in the underpinnings of the expert's opinion. International Adhesive Coating Co. v. Bolton Emerson Int'l, Inc., 851 F.2d 540, 544 (1st Cir.1988). See also Smith v. Ford Motor Co., 626 F.2d 784, 793 (10th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 918, 101 S.Ct. 1363, 67 L.Ed.2d 344 (1981). MoPac conducted a lengthy and probing cross-examination which demonstrated Gouty could not point to any specific defect in MoPac's signal units. Nevertheless, Gouty's opinion did have some basis in fact, at least insofar as his unrebutted statement, that the information [on this HXP] tape 8 is not valid, it doesn't agree with what the actual conditions are (Tr. of Proceedings (5/14/91) at 17), supported his conclusion that some part of the signal system may not have worked properly at the time of the incident (Id. at 12). 50 The district court properly overruled MoPac's belated initial objection to the above opinion of Gouty as lacking factual foundation. The witness had already answered before the objection was interposed. Moreover, after the witness later stated at length the basis for his opinion, MoPac made no motion to strike the testimony. Finally, MoPac failed to introduce credible evidence contradicting Gouty's opinion about the disparity between the train speed registered on the recording device and the actual speed as testified to by the train's engineers. (See testimony of Sylvanis Walker, Tr. of Trial (5/16/91) at 221-223.) 51 Even if Gouty's testimony lacked adequate foundation, in light of its overall weakness in adding to plaintiff's case, we would not reverse; for the error, if any, was harmless.