Opinion ID: 1834950
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 20

Heading: did the trial court err in allowing an accident reconstruction specialist to testify?

Text: Donald Rawson, the expert in question, is an agent who is an employee with the Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol and he testified that in his expert opinion the damage to Mrs. Im's van was consistent with having come into contact with the right front bumper of the Wilson's Grand Prix. We need not repeat the just stated rule on admission of expert testimony. Here Wilson contends that no predicate was laid to indicate that this witness could state with certainty that the dent in the van was caused by the Grand Prix' bumper. Wilson claims that under Hollingsworth v. Bovaird Supply Co., 465 So.2d 311, 315 (Miss. 1985), accident reconstruction specialists' testimony is limited to the relative speed of the two vehicles, the angle of the vehicles at impact and the vehicles' course of travel. We do not read Hollingsworth to be so limiting. The language to which Wilson refers came from a concurring opinion in Hagan Storm Fence Co. v. Edwards, 245 Miss. 487, 148 So.2d 693 (1963), which the Hollingsworth court expressly overruled by allowing expert accident reconstruction opinions in our courts. In Whittington v. State, 523 So.2d 966, 975 (Miss. 1988), we ruled that an accident reconstructionist was properly permitted to testify as to whether the tire mark at the edge of the pavement at the accident scene was an acceleration mark as opposed to a skid mark. In so doing, we expressly recognized that the testimony of accident reconstruction specialists is allowed in criminal cases in this State. In Moffett v. State, 540 So.2d 1313, 1314 (Miss. 1989), a culpable negligence manslaughter case, Sgt. Rawson, as a specialist in accident reconstruction, gave his conclusions regarding the accident. In short, our law recognizes expert testimony by an accident reconstruction specialist as an accepted area of inquiry. In this case, Sgt. Rawson expressed an opinion that the damage to Mrs. Im's van was consistent with having come into contact with the right front bumper of Wilson's Grand Prix. As a basis for his opinion, he relied on eyewitnesses' accounts of the accident, he had visited the scene, he viewed photos, and he had examined both vehicles. He explained that upon acceleration, a vehicle has a tendency to rise vertically. This would cause the damage to the victim's van to be slightly higher than the bumper of the defendant's Grand Prix. He was qualified to offer that opinion. Any objection made goes to the weight of this evidence and not its admissibility and the trial judge correctly admitted it. There is no merit to this assignment of error.