Opinion ID: 1694698
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: Testimony of Pathologists.

Text: Davlin also asserts that the district court erred in rejecting his Daubert challenges and admitting the opinions of the pathologists, Porterfield, Okoye, and Bennett. He argues that their opinions regarding the cause of Ligenza's death failed to meet Daubert standards because they did not apply their methodologies in a reliable manner. We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the testimony of Porterfield, Okoye, and Bennett. Similar to its response with respect to the challenges to the fire experts' testimony, the State asserts that consideration of Davlin's challenges to the pathologists' testimony is barred by the law-of-the-case doctrine because the same evidence was challenged in the first appeal. However, as noted above with regard to the fire experts, an expert's testimony and opinions may vary from one trial to the next, and the law-of-the-case doctrine does not necessarily preclude a foundational challenge to the expert's testimony in a retrial. We therefore consider Davlin's challenges to the pathologists' testimony. Davlin does not challenge the doctors' qualifications, nor does he question their methodologies. Instead, he claims that there were failings in the manner in which Porterfield conducted the original autopsy and that such failings made his opinions unreliable. He further argues that the failings in Porterfield's autopsy also made Okoye's and Bennett's opinions unreliable because, in addition to their own failings, they based their opinions in part on Porterfield's findings. The district court in this case thoroughly reviewed the procedures used by Porterfield, Okoye, and Bennett and, as noted above, found that a reasonable basis existed for their opinions. We note that much of Davlin's argument challenging the reliability of Porterfield's examination is based on the testimony of a pathologist who testified at Davlin's first trial and critiqued Porterfield's procedures and opinions. Although testimony critiquing the procedures and opinions of another expert is an acceptable form of expert testimony, Perry Lumber Co. v. Durable Servs., 271 Neb. 303, 710 N.W.2d 854 (2006), a reasonable critique of an expert's procedures and opinion does not necessarily indicate that such procedures were so unreliable as to make the expert's opinion testimony inadmissible. Our review of the district court's consideration of the procedures followed by Porterfield, Okoye, and Bennett leads us to conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that they had reasonable bases for their opinions and that the court therefore did not abuse its discretion by admitting the opinion testimony of Porterfield, Okoye, and Bennett. We reject this assignment of error.