Opinion ID: 4421122
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The District Court’s Exclusion of Hodgson1

Text: Hodgson is an engineer, hired by WPCA, who submitted a 108-page expert report to the district court explaining her conclusion that the Flowserve pumps had nine design defects that “were the cause of the pump failures and operational problems that plagued WPCA’s operation of its treatment plant.” SPA-15. The district court excluded Hodgson because, in part, she had reached her conclusion without considering evidence relevant to the possibility that the pumps had failed due to operator error in running the pumps dry, rather than because of design defects. In particular, Hodgson failed to review evidence regarding how the Flowserve pumps were maintained and operated, including “the deposition transcripts of most witnesses in this case, the daily log books recording Pump operation, the preventative maintenance records, or OMI’s daily round checklists.” SPA-35. As a result, the district court deemed Hodgson’s conclusions unreliable. We review a “district court’s determination to admit or exclude expert testimony under Daubert for abuse of discretion.” Amorgianos v. Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp., 303 F.3d 256, 264 (2d Cir. 2002). “A decision to admit or exclude expert . . . testimony is not an abuse of discretion unless it is ‘manifestly erroneous.’” Id. at 265 (quoting McCullock v. H.B. Fuller Co., 61 F.3d 1038, 1042 (2d Cir. 1995)). The abuse-of-discretion standard “applies as much to the trial court’s decisions about how to determine reliability as to its ultimate conclusion.” Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137, 152 (1999). Significantly, “it is critical that an expert’s analysis be reliable at every step,” and “any step that renders the analysis unreliable” under Daubert 1 Because we determine infra that the exclusion of Hodgson alone dooms WPCA’s claims, we do not address the district court’s decision to exclude Dickson. 5 “renders the expert’s testimony inadmissible.” Amorgianos, 303 F.3d at 267 (quoting In re Paoli R.R. Yard PCB Litig., 35 F.3d 717, 745 (3d Cir. 1994)). On appeal, WPCA argues that the district court abused its discretion in excluding Hodgson. WPCA contends that even though Hodgson may not have reviewed all relevant evidence as to the failure of the pumps, she did review Supervisory Control and Acquisition Data (“SCADA data”), which provides computerized information about the pumps’ functioning; in WPCA’s view, that is enough to render her conclusions reliable. We are not persuaded. First, WPCA did not mention the SCADA data in its papers below opposing the motion to exclude Hodgson, despite being alerted by Flowserve’s papers to the argument that Hodgson had failed to consider all relevant evidence. WPCA has thus waived any argument that the SCADA data, without more, could render Hodgson’s conclusions reliable. See Booking v. Gen. Star Mgmt. Co., 254 F.3d 414, 418 (2d Cir. 2001). Second, even if this argument were not waived, a review of the record demonstrates that the OMI logs provided important information relating to the cause of the pumps’ failure not present in the raw SCADA data. The raw SCADA data merely conveys the status of the pumps—not the cause of that status. For instance, if a pump were running dry, SCADA data would not show whether the pump was running dry because of operator error or some design defect in the pump itself. A review of the OMI logs, then, would be critical to reliably make any sort of conclusion as to the cause of pump problems. Hodgson conceded that she did not review the OMI logs. As a result, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding Hodgson.2 2 Nor did the court abuse its discretion in declining to hold a Daubert hearing before excluding Hodgson. This Court has stated that “[w]hile the gatekeeping function requires the district court to ascertain the reliability of [an expert’s] methodology, it does not necessarily require that a separate hearing be held in order to do so.” United States v. Williams, 506 F.3d 151, 161 (2d Cir. 2007) (emphasis added). Here, where the well-developed record contained Hodgson’s report, the transcript from her seven-hour 6