Opinion ID: 796549
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Expert Testimony: Qualifications and Reliability

Text: 12 Defendant brought motions in limine to prevent Plaintiff's proffered experts from testifying at trial. The district court granted Defendant's motion in limine insofar as it excluded expert testimony on the foreseeability of the October 1, 2001 incident, but otherwise denied the motions, finding that Plaintiff's experts were qualified to proffer testimony and that their testimony was reliable. Defendant argues that the district court failed to properly apply the Daubert framework to the qualifications of Plaintiff's proffered experts and the reliability of their testimony and thereby abandoned its Daubert gatekeeping role. (Def.'s Br. at 18) We disagree.
13 The Federal Rules of Evidence provide that expert witnesses may only testify where that testimony will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue. Fed.R.Evid. 702. As a threshold matter, expert witnesses must be qualified to testify to a matter relevant to the case, and a proffering party can qualify their expert with reference to his knowledge, skill, experience, training or education. Id. 14 The district court did not abuse its discretion in finding Plaintiff's expert witnesses, Robert Martin (Martin) and Lance Watt (Watt), qualified. Martin boasted a law enforcement background, having worked twenty-eight years with the Los Angeles Police Department. In his later years on the force, Martin founded a threat management unit which, among other things, dealt with . . . managing violently inclined situations of the mentally ill. (J.A. at 906) Now the Vice-President of a consulting firm, Martin has worked with clients in the transportation industry on threat assessment issues, and has overseen the design of threat assessment systems. In his work in the transportation field, he trained employees on interpersonal human aggression and managing violently inclined employees. (J.A. at 953) Although Martin does not have threat assessment experience in the bus industry, the district court qualified Martin as an expert in threat assessment. 15 We cannot say with definite and firm conviction that the district court committed a clear error of judgment in evaluating Martin's qualifications to testify as an expert. See Conwood, 290 F.3d at 781. While not specific to the bus industry, Martin's background and experience leaves him well-positioned to assist the trier of fact to make sense of the prior incident reports from the perspective of a specialist in threat assessment. Martin's general experience further enables him to evaluate the sufficiency of Defendant's driver training. It is of little consequence to questions of admissibility that Martin lacked expertise in the very specialized area of commercial bus line threat assessment. See First Tenn. Bank Nat'l Ass'n v. Barreto, 268 F.3d 319, 333 (6th Cir.2001) (noting the plaintiff's unduly narrow approach to defining the central issue at trial and unfamiliarity with some specific aspects of the subject at hand merely affected the weight and credibility of [the] testimony, not its admissibility); see also Smith v. BMW N. Am., Inc., 308 F.3d 913, 919 (8th Cir.2002) (finding abuse of discretion where the district court excluded testimony of an expert witness qualified in a general field merely because that witness lacked expertise more specialized and more directly related to the issue at hand). 16 Defendant also challenges the qualifications of Plaintiff's second proffered expert. Employed as a forensic engineer, Watt received his educational training in a six-year mechanical engineering program. His work experience included time in the transportation sector generally, with a specific focus on buses for a period of several years. In fact, sometime in the early 1990's, Watt designed an entry-resistant barrier to protect bus drivers from attacks by passengers. (J.A. at 1029-30) At trial, the district judge qualified Watt as a [b]us and heavy truck engineer. (J.A. at 1029) In view of Watt's background and experience — especially considering his personal role in designing an entry-resistant barrier to prevent passenger attacks of bus drivers — the district court did not abuse its discretion in qualifying Watt. 17
18 We further find that the district court did not abuse its discretion in discharging its Daubert gatekeeping function. In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 597, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993), the Supreme Court held that scientific evidence proffered by an expert must be relevant to the task at hand and must rest on a reliable foundation. The Supreme Court subsequently affirmed that Daubert's principles apply more generally to all expert testimony admissible under Rule 702 in Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137, 148, 119 S.Ct. 1167, 143 L.Ed.2d 238 (1999). The maxims set forth in Daubert and Kumho Tire have since been incorporated in Rule 702, which now permits qualified experts to proffer their expert opinions where 19
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21 (3) the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case. 22 Fed.R.Evid. 702. In essence, Daubert and its progeny have placed the district courts in the role of gatekeeper, charging them with evaluating the relevance and reliability of proffered expert testimony with heightened care. In discharging that role, district courts possess broad discretion to make admissibility determinations. Pride v. BIC Corp., 218 F.3d 566, 578 (6th Cir. 2000). 23 Defendant here challenges the district court's reliability determination. Daubert itself set forth a list of non-exhaustive factors to guide district courts in assessing reliability. Daubert, 509 U.S. at 593-94, 113 S.Ct. 2786. However, district courts need not adhere to those enumerated factors, as [t]he inquiry . . . is a flexible one. Id. at 594, 113 S.Ct. 2786. Indeed, the law grants a district court the same broad latitude when it decides how to determine reliability as it enjoys in respect to its ultimate reliability determination. Kumho Tire, 526 U.S. at 142, 119 S.Ct. 1167 (citing Joiner, 522 U.S. at 143, 118 S.Ct. 512). As this Court has observed, where non-scientific expert testimony is involved, the [Daubert] factors may be pertinent, or the relevant reliability concerns may focus upon personal knowledge or experience. Barreto, 268 F.3d at 335 (citing Kumho Tire, 526 U.S. at 150, 119 S.Ct. 1167); see also Ellis v. Gallatin Steel Co., 390 F.3d 461, 470 (6th Cir.2004). The gatekeeping inquiry is context-specific and must be tied to the facts of a particular case. Kumho Tire, 526 U.S. at 150, 119 S.Ct. 1167 (internal citations omitted). 24 At trial, Watt opined that the October 2001 attack on Defendant's driver could have been prevented if the bus had been equipped with an entry-resistant barrier. Watt further testified to the feasibility of designing such a barrier, as he himself had previously done. Martin rendered an opinion on the sufficiency of Defendant's risk management training for drivers, and further opined that the prior incidents suggested the need for a barrier between Defendant's drivers and its passengers. Plaintiff's experts did not offer scientific expert testimony; rather, their testimony constitutes technical or other specialized knowledge. Fed.R.Evid. 702; Barreto, 268 F.3d at 332. In this context, the factors enumerated in Daubert cannot readily be applied to measure the reliability of such testimony. See Kumho Tire, 526 U.S. at 150, 119 S.Ct. 1167; Barreto, 268 F.3d at 335. 25 Nevertheless, at the pretrial hearing on Defendant's motions in limine, the district court achieved its fundamental objective . . . to ensure the reliability and relevancy of that testimony. Barreto, 268 F.3d at 335. First, it should be noted that the district court ruled that Martin and Watts could not proffer their opinions on the issue of foreseeability, noting that anybody can give the opinion that it's foreseeable if there have been this many incidents. (J.A. at 857) At the outset, therefore, the court limited the nature of the experts' testimony to exclude commentary unnecessary to aid the jury. Additionally, the district court heard arguments from counsel for both sides on the reliability of Plaintiff's proffered experts, and Plaintiff highlighted aspects of the experts' personal knowledge and experience as it relates to the opinions they ultimately rendered. Although the district court did not explicitly probe the rationale for the proposed expert opinions during the hearing, counsel set forth the basis of the proffered witnesses' expertise, and directly linked it to the facts of the case. 26 Moreover, the record indicates that the experts adequately explain[ed] how th[eir] experience leads to the conclusion reached, why that experience is a sufficient basis for the opinion, and how that experience is reliably applied to the facts. See Fed.R.Evid. 702 advisory committee's note. In his deposition, Watt elaborated on his experience designing driver's enclosures for Seattle transit buses and testified to viewing line haul buses similar to the bus Sands drove in October 2001. Watt discussed at some length the effect of installing a driver's shield on preventing passenger attacks, linking it expressly to the facts of this case. Likewise, in his written declaration, Martin details his threat assessment experience at length. He further lists the materials reviewed in formulating his opinion, which include Defendant's prior incident reports, Defendant's Professional Driver's Guidelines, Driver's Handbook, Driver's Bulletin on Emergency Operations, the deposition transcript of Defendant's Vice President of Risk, as well as the testimony of Defendant's various other personnel. Martin expressly states that his opinions were based on his extensive experience and review of the relevant materials. Cf. Fed. R.Evid. 702 advisory committee's notes ([W]hen a law enforcement agent testifies regarding the use of code words in a drug transaction . . . [t]he method used by the agent is the application of extensive experience to analyze the meaning of conversations.) Upon review of the record, we cannot say with definite and firm conviction that the district court abused its discretion in finding Plaintiff's experts reliable, and permitting them to testify. See Conwood, 290 F.3d at 781.