Opinion ID: 1058885
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Hiteshew's testimony

Text: It is well settled that this Court reviews the trial court's decision to admit expert testimony under an abuse of discretion standard. Tarmac Mid-Atlantic, Inc. v. Smiley Block Co., 250 Va. 161, 166, 458 S.E.2d 462, 465 (1995). Blue Ridge argues that Hiteshew's testimony was improperly admitted because Hiteshew wrongly assessed the credibility of witnesses and his opinion was speculative ... and unsupported by the evidence. We agree with Blue Ridge that Hiteshew's opinion was without a basis supported by the evidence and was therefore speculative and unreliable as a matter of law. The trial court thus erred because it was an abuse of the trial court's discretion to admit Hiteshew's opinion testimony into evidence. [2] The General Assembly has determined that scientific, technical, or other specialize[d] expert testimony is admissible into evidence if it will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue. Code § 8.01-401.3(A). In accordance with the statutory directive, this Court has approved admission of expert opinions into evidence where the jury is confronted with issues that require scientific or specialized knowledge or experience in order to be properly understood, and which cannot be determined intelligently merely from the deductions made and inferences drawn on the basis of ordinary knowledge, common sense, and practical experience gained in the ordinary affairs of life. Holmes v. John Doe, 257 Va. 573, 578, 515 S.E.2d 117, 120 (1999) (citation omitted). However, when the issue to be decided involves matters of common knowledge or those as to which the jury is as competent to form an intelligent and accurate opinion as the expert witness, expert evidence is inadmissible. Holcombe v. NationsBanc Fin. Servs. Corp., 248 Va. 445, 448, 450 S.E.2d 158, 160 (1994). Thus, where the opinion of an expert is appropriate, such opinion must meet certain standards as a condition precedent to admission into evidence. [E]xpert testimony... cannot be speculative or founded upon assumptions that have an insufficient factual basis. Tittsworth v. Robinson, 252 Va. 151, 154, 475 S.E.2d 261, 263 (1996) (citations omitted). Hiteshew was qualified by the trial court as an expert in fire origin and cause investigation, to which designation Blue Ridge does not assign error. Blue Ridge claims error to the admission of Hiteshew's ultimate opinion that the fire originated in the shipping and receiving room at the rear of the store and was caused as a result of smoking material discarded into the trash can. Hiteshew primarily based his opinion as to the origin on the burn pattern on the wall of the shipping room. Hiteshew testified that he based the causation element of his opinion upon information he had received about the placement of a wastepaper box in the shipping and receiving room, a video tape photograph of the area showing such a box, deposition statements that there was a smoker on the cleaning crew, and an admission by Yus that he smoked twice the night of the fire. Blue Ridge's expert, Richard T. Chance, agreed with Hiteshew that the fire started in the back of the store, but disagreed as to the location and cause. Chance opined, concurring with the fire marshal, that the cause of the fire could not be determined. However, the variance in opinions of Hiteshew and Chance are not the basis of Blue Ridge's assignment of error. Blue Ridge contends that Hiteshew's opinion as to how the fire started is founded on assumptions which have no basis in fact and could not therefore be admitted into evidence. Hiteshew testified that he based his opinion on the cause of the fire on the following: The information that I obtained about the trash receptacle being located [in] that area, the photograph from the video tape that suggests there was a box in the area of origin that had trash in it at the time, the statements that I read from depositions that indicated that there was a smoker in the facility and that he did smoke. Nobody observed him smoke, although he admitted smoking twice. The fact that the fire originated in a container that is very consistent and conducive to a fire originating in that location.... Saxon argues there was sufficient evidence to support Hiteshew's opinion that the wastepaper box was by the workbench in the shipping room and contained wastepaper at the time of the fire. Blue Ridge contends Hiteshew merely assumed the box was there without sufficient evidence. Multiple witnesses testified at trial about the placement of the box. James Roberts, Jr., general manager of Saxon, testified that there's always a box in receiving to contain trash. Charles McNamara, the Saxon employee in charge of shipping and receiving, testified that on the evening of February 16, 2001, the day before the fire, that he emptied the trash box before he left at 5:30 p.m. McNamara said that after he emptied the box, he would set it elsewhere so that people at the store on the weekend could not use it. However, Gary Weiner, Saxon's CEO, testified that [d]epending on the time of year, that box could be empty, or that box could be stuff [sic] because this is February [17th]. At that time of year, the store would receive heavy shipments of shoes to be checked into inventory with paper discarded in the box on the weekends as well as the weekdays. Weiner also said that when he checked in shipments, he didn't always empty the box at the end of the day. However, there is no indication in the record that Weiner was checking in shipments on any dates near the time of the fire. Roberts agreed that it was a custom of Mr. McNamara ... to clean all of [the] trash out before [he] left. Weiner testified that McNamara empt[ies] that box out pretty religiously when he's there but that there were many days when the box was not empty because he may not have been the last person to leave .... Weiner admitted that the box [p]ossibly would have been empty the evening before the fire unless somebody checked in [shipments] on Saturday when [McNamara] typically didn't work. Roberts testified that an employee called O'Bryan was stocking on the day of the fire and that he could not say whether O'Bryan emptied the box. O'Bryan did not testify and there is no other reference to him in the record. Saxon offered into evidence a photo frame of video footage from the security camera in the shipping and receiving room. The photograph showed the wastepaper box near the workbench, but Weiner admitted that the picture did not show whether the box had any paper in it or that the box was in that spot on the evening of the fire. Weiner testified that the tape in the camera was changed every morning and that each tape is 24 or 36 hours long. While we note that evidence as to the placement of the wastepaper box at the time of the fire is not conclusive, there was positive evidence in the record which a trier of fact arguably could weigh to determine whether the box was present at the purported point of origin, under the workbench, at the time of the fire and contained wastepaper. We will assume, without deciding, that sufficient evidence existed upon which Hiteshew could conclude as part of his opinion that the wastepaper box was under the workbench and contained wastepaper at the time of the fire. However, even assuming that the wastepaper box was under the workbench at the time in question and provided the fuel source for the fire to establish the point of origin, the record does not support Hiteshew's ultimate opinion of the fire originating as a result of smoking material discarded into the trash can because there was a smoker in the facility and ... he did smoke. In other words, there was insufficient evidence upon which Hiteshew could give an opinion as to causation. Hiteshew testified that there were, in his opinion, two possible ignition sources for the fire: a structural source and human intervention. Because he had ruled out the possibility that a light fixture or faulty wiring started the fire, he opined that a smoker on the cleaning crew negligently discarded a cigarette in the box and started the fire. Hiteshew based this conclusion on his belief that the wastepaper box was under the workbench, and there was a smoker in the building when the fire started. While Hiteshew never specifically stated that Yus discarded a cigarette into the wastepaper box, that this was a primary basis for his conclusion is clear based on his ultimate opinion of the fire's cause. Hiteshew came to his conclusion in spite of the fact that there were no witnesses who saw Yus smoking in the building and no physical evidence of smoking in the building by Yus or any other Blue Ridge employee. In fact, Hiteshew opined that the lack of physical evidence of smoking material further supported his conclusion that a smoker in the building had caused the fire. Q But you never found any evidence of a cigarette? A Which is very suspicious .... It is very, very common not to find the [remnants] of cigarettes because it is a very small item that can disintegrate in a very small area. But there was no factual basis in the record for Hiteshew's opinion on causation. Each member of the cleaning crew testified that he did not see Yus smoke in the building. Both Javier and Castro testified that Yus was the only smoker on the crew. The crew worked close together and no one observed a co-worker smoking inside the building. Garcia testified by deposition that Yus was the only smoker on the crew and that he observed Yus smoking outside the building. Garcia testified that Yus was in his sight the entire time except when he was cleaning the offices. Yus admitted to the fire marshal that he smoked twice on the night of the fire, both times outside the building. Yus said that both Javier and Roberts saw him. While Javier testified that he did not see Yus smoking outside the building, Garcia did. At trial, Roberts was not asked whether he saw Yus smoking. The record contains no evidence that any employee of Blue Ridge smoked inside the building, much less put a burning cigarette into the trash box. Hiteshew's opinion is thus unsupported by the evidence. The record before us is devoid of any evidence upon which Hiteshew could conclude that a smoker on the cleaning crew caused the fire by tossing a cigarette in the wastepaper box. His conclusion that since Yus smoked on the night of the fire, he must have smoked inside and then discarded the cigarette in the trash box is pure speculation which we have repeatedly held is unreliable as a matter of law. In Vasquez v. Mabini, 269 Va. 155, 159-61, 606 S.E.2d 809, 811-12 (2005), we held that an expert's testimony in a wrongful death action as to the decedent's expected loss of income and the economic value of the loss of her services was inadmissible as it was speculative and founded upon assumptions that [had] no basis in fact. Id. at 160-61, 606 S.E.2d at 811-12. The expert based his lost income calculation on his assumption that the decedent, who was unemployed at her death and had never earned more than $7,000 per year, would secure fulltime clerical work the next day, at a salary of $16,000 per year and receive a retirement benefit of 3.7% and an annual raise of 4.25%. Id. In calculating the economic value of the loss of her services, the expert opined that the decedent's disabled son, who depended upon her for much of his care, would live throughout his mother's remaining life, even though he died prior to trial. Id. at 161, 606 S.E.2d at 812. The trial court erred in admitting that testimony from the expert as it lacked an evidentiary basis in the record. Similarly, in Countryside Corp. v. Taylor, 263 Va. 549, 553, 561 S.E.2d 680, 682 (2002), we held that an expert real estate appraiser's damages calculation was inadmissible because it was based in part on the failure of an access road to abut the plaintiffs' property. However, the defendants had conveyed land to the plaintiffs prior to trial so that the road did abut their property, and the expert's opinion was thus based on speculation contrary to the facts. The trial court erred for that reason in admitting the experts testimony. In both Vasquez and Countryside, we noted that when an expert `assume[s] a fiction and base[s] his opinion of damages upon that fiction[,]' . . . that testimony [is] `speculative and unreliable as a matter of law.' Vasquez, 269 Va. at 161, 606 S.E.2d at 812 ( citing Countryside, 263 Va. at 553, 561 S.E.2d at 682). In the case at bar, Hiteshew assumed, contrary to Yus' statement and the testimony of the other Blue Ridge employees, that Yus smoked in the store and discarded smoking material in the wastepaper box. Unlike the evidence with regard to the location of the wastepaper box, there is no positive evidence in the record which the jury could weigh to determine whether a Blue Ridge employee discarded smoking material in the wastepaper box. Thus, Hiteshew's assumption is not supported by the evidence, and his causation opinion based on that assumption is inadmissible as a matter of law. See id. The trial court abused its discretion by permitting Hiteshew's testimony on the cause of the fire to come into evidence and go to the jury. The trial court thus erred in not granting Blue Ridge's motion to strike Hiteshew's testimony as to the cause of the fire.