Opinion ID: 1106367
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether Dunklin's testimony was reliable, thus satisfying Daubert and McLemore.

Text: ¶ 7. The landowners' expert, Henry Dunklin testified that the highest and best use of the land was commercial or industrial, and Dunklin initially used comparable sales from commercial or industrial property to reach his conclusion that the fair market value of the land should be $4,500 per acre. Tunica's expert, Rip Walker, meanwhile identified the highest and best use of the property as residential or institutional, with an interim use of agricultural. The land has always been used for agricultural purposes. Granting in part Tunica's motion to exclude, the trial court precluded Dunklin from testifying using these comparables or using this highest and best use. Tunica contends that because the trial court prevented Dunklin from basing his testimony on comparable sales that are commercial, his new valuation of the land should have been much lower, and, that the testimony therefore lacked reliability and was not the product of proper methodology. ¶ 8. The trial court found that commercial sales were not reliably comparable and should be excluded from evidence, referring to Dunklin's opinion as speculative that the highest and best use of the property was commercial or industrial, as it was incompatible with the property characteristics and area development history. Because there was no evidence presented of a probability of a change in zoning, the trial court excluded and prohibited comparable sales of commercial property and any testimony or statement of values based in whole or in part on such comparables. Later, after Dunklin's results remained the same, Tunica filed a second motion to exclude Dunklin's testimony, and the trial court denied this motion to exclude. ¶ 9. The comparable sales the trial court initially ordered excluded were five per acre values of $100,000, $56,000, $40,000, $32,000, and $26,000. Thus, the remaining per acre values were $18,500, $7,000, $5,500, and $5,000, plus one other new comparable of $7,500 per acre. Dunklin's appraised value of the land at $4,500 per acre remained the same after the trial court's order. Tunica claims that Dunklin's appraisal value remaining unchanged, despite the court order, offends basic principles of logic and mathematics. Tunica argues that Dunklin must have ignored the court's order and based his results on improper methodology. The landowners argue that real estate appraisal is much more complicated than a simple mathematical calculation, but instead requires analysis of all applicable information and data. The landowners point out that, in any case, Dunklin's appraised value of the land at $4,500 per acre was not only a lower per-acre price than all of the comparable sales he considered, both before and after the trial court's order, but was also a lower valuation than six of the nine comparable sales used by Tunica's appraiser. ¶ 10. This Court has refused to accept testimony of values of comparables for a highest and best use different from that of the subject property. See Pearl River Valley Water Supply Dist. v. Brown, 254 Miss. 685, 182 So.2d 384, 388-89 (1966); Mississippi State Highway Comm'n v. Roche, 249 Miss. 792, 163 So.2d 874, 880 (1964). However the trial court is vested with a gatekeeping responsibility to prevent the admission of expert testimony based on guess or conjecture. McLemore, 863 So.2d at 36. The trial court must make a `preliminary assessment of whether the reasoning or methodology underlying the testimony is scientifically valid and of whether that reasoning and methodology properly can be applied to the facts in issue.' Id. (relying on Daubert, 509 U.S. at 592-93, 113 S.Ct. 2786). Testimony concerning the valuation of the land is certainly relevant; it is the reliability of this testimony that is at issue. Tunica questions the reliability of the testimony, taking issue with Dunklin's conclusion not changing after the trial court's ruling. However, we have said: The Court in Daubert adopted a non-exhaustive, illustrative list of reliability factors for determining the admissibility of expert witness testimony. The focus of this analysis must be solely on principles and methodology, not on the conclusions they generate. These factors include whether the theory or technique can be and has been tested; whether it has been subjected to peer review and publication; whether, in respect to a particular technique, there is a high known or potential rate of error; whether there are standards controlling the technique's operation; and whether the theory or technique enjoys general acceptance within a relevant scientific community. Id. at 36-37 (internal citations omitted). In McLemore, we reversed the admission of expert testimony [1] of a land appraisal in part because the method the expert employed in his appraisal was not printed in any textbook, not taught in seminars, unique to the McLemore appraisal, not a principle of any kind, and not taught in any of the licensing courses the expert completed. Id. at 41. The methodology employed by Dunklin in this case, however, meets the criteria of both Rule 702 and McLemore. The experts both agreed on using the comparable land sales approach as the proper methodology to value the land, a methodology that easily meets the Daubert factors. It was not Dunklin's entire testimony, nor his result, which the trial court found to be unreliable; but, instead, the trial court found the use of commercial sales as comparables and the reliance on a highest and best use of commercial and industrial to be unreliable. The trial court made this clear in its orders, which denied Tunica County's second motion only upon conditions Dunklin had to fulfill in his testimony. We are quite simply unable to find that the trial court abused its discretion, or failed in its gatekeeping responsibility, in admitting this testimony. The testimony was admissible, thus placing before the jury the issue of what weight or credit to afford to this testimony. ¶ 11. We have long held that the jury may reject or accept any expert testimony it chooses in cases involving land valuation. The jury in the trial of a case of this kind is not required to accept the opinion evidence of an expert witness who testifies for the land owner or the county. The jury may disregard the testimony of a witness whose testimony the jury has reasonable grounds to believe is worthless. Warren County v. Harris, 211 Miss. 80, 88, 50 So.2d 918, 920 (1951). In addition, the jury had the opportunity to inspect the subject land in this case, and was to use this, too, in coming to its decision. The opinions of experts as to values in cases of this kind are not to be passively received and blindly followed, but are to be weighed by the jury and judged in view of all of the testimony in the case and the jury's own general knowledge of affairs, and are to be given only such consideration as the jury may believe them entitled to receive. Id. at 921. This rule is often cited in Mississippi case law. See, e.g., Miss. State Highway Comm'n v. Madison County, 242 Miss. 471, 480, 135 So.2d 708, 712 (1961); N. Biloxi Dev. Co., L.L.C. v. Miss. Transp. Comm'n, 912 So.2d 1118, 1126 (Miss.Ct. App.2005); Bishop v. Miss. Transp. Comm'n, 734 So.2d 218, 222 (Miss.Ct.App. 1999). For these reasons, we find that the correct valuation of the land was entirely a jury question, and, we thus find no fault in the trial judge's decision to admit this testimony.