Opinion ID: 803961
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Exclusion of Lundquist’s Expert Testimony

Text: We now turn to the cross-appeal. The four cross-appealing plaintiffs argue that the district court erred in excluding the expert testimony of Dr. Lundquist, who would have testified that the Port Authority’s promotion procedure was so unstructured and subjective that it fell below professional standards, and who would have compared the qualifications of the plaintiffs with those of the officers who were actually promoted. Expert testimony is admissible if it “(a) will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue,” so long as “(b) the testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data; (c) the testimony 49 is the product of reliable principles and methods; and (d) the expert has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of the case.” Fed. R. Evid. 702. A district court’s exclusion of expert testimony is reviewed for abuse of discretion, and “[a] decision to admit or exclude expert scientific testimony is not an abuse of discretion unless it is ‘manifestly erroneous.’” Amorgianos v. Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp., 303 F.3d 256, 265 (2d Cir. 2002) (quoting McCullock v. H.B. Fuller Co., 61 F.3d 1038, 1042 (2d Cir. 1995)). “Further, an erroneous evidentiary ruling warrants a new trial only when ‘a substantial right of a party is affected,’ as when ‘a jury’s judgment would be swayed in a material fashion by the error.’” Lore v. City of Syracuse, 670 F.3d 127, 155 (2d Cir. 2012) (quoting Arlio v. Lively, 474 F.3d 46, 51 (2d Cir. 2007)). The district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that it lacked evidence that Dr. Lundquist’s testimony was based on established principles and methods and that, in any event, her testimony would not have provided assistance to the trier of fact beyond that afforded by the arguments of counsel, as required by Rule 702. On appeal, the plaintiffs argue that the district court failed to acknowledge the portion of Dr. Lundquist’s testimony that compared the qualifications of the plaintiffs with those of the white officers who were promoted instead. But Dr. Lundquist’s analysis as to the comparative qualifications of the plaintiffs was both brief and simple, relying mostly on 50 various officers’ years of experience, commendations, discipline, and absences. For each of the four plaintiffs who did not prevail, Dr. Lundquist merely summed up their qualifications in a few sentences and then compared each of them to two officers who were promoted instead but whose record suggested that they may have been less qualified. For example, she compared both Michael Chung and Sanrit Booncome to a promoted officer named Gary Griffith, whom she described only as having “sixty-seven absences in 2000 alone.” The district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that expert analysis was not required to help the jury understand such evidence. Indeed, the plaintiffs’ attorneys made the same points in argument that were made in Dr. Lundquist’s report. Chung and Booncome’s qualifications were established in detail while they were on the stand, and their attorney brought out Gary Griffith’s relative lack of experience and his significant number of absences through questioning of a former Superintendent. The plaintiffs’ attorneys, moreover, emphasized throughout the trial the relative qualifications of the plaintiffs when compared with officers who were promoted. At the trial’s conclusion, the plaintiffs’ summation detailed the qualifications of each of the plaintiffs in almost exactly the same way as Dr. Lundquist’s testimony would have, including occasionally comparing a plaintiff with someone who had been promoted. The district court therefore did not abuse its discretion in 51 determining that Dr. Lundquist’s testimony was not relevant expert testimony that would help the jury understand the facts at issue.