Court Opinion

ID: 9853293
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:45:56.987015+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:44.391893
License: Public Domain

Thomas Gallagher, Justice
(dissenting).
Based upon Beckman v. Schroeder, 224 Minn. 370, 28 N. W. (2d) 629, the majority holds that the trial court erred in receiving the expert *29opinion of Adolph Lee as to the location of the accident upon the highway. In that case, as indicated above, we held that it was error to admit the opinion of a deputy sheriff as to the point of collision between two automobiles involved in a highway collision.
Generally, before resort may be had to expert testimony, it should appear that the subject to which it relates is one not ordinarily within the knowledge of the average layman; and that the witness who is called to testify thereon possesses training, education, or experience which provides him with knowledge and information on the subject superior to that of the average person. Noe v. G. N. Ry. Co. 168 Minn. 259, 209 N. W. 905; Swanson v. LaFontaine, 238 Minn. 460, 57 N. W. (2d) 262.
The trial court is given wide discretion in determining whether the subject is one upon which expert testimony would be of assistance, and whether the expert called to testify thereon is qualified by his training and knowledge to offer information not within the knowledge of the average layman. Berg v. Ullevig, 244 Minn. 390, 70 N. W. (2d) 133; Smith v. Twin City Motor Bus Co. 228 Minn. 14, 36 N. W. (2d) 22. The trial judge may always exercise his discretion in weighing the danger of admitting expert testimony against the danger that its exclusion might militate against justice.
Here it seems clear that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in receiving the testimony of Professor Lee as to the location of the point of contact between the two automobiles. There can be no dispute as to his qualifications to testify on the subject. He is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Minnesota. He testified that his work at the University of Minnesota covered instructions in the area of thermodynamics, engines, and design in the elements of automobile engineering parts and mechanisms; that he had done a substantial amount of work in the field of physical forces, velocities, and accelerations involving laws of motion and force; and that during the preceding five years he had been called upon to analyze between 40 and 50 automobile collisions per year with the idea of determining how the automobiles involved had come in contact with each other.
Further, the limited evidence on the issue as to the point of contact *30between the two vehicles made this subject one in which an expert in the field of physical forces, velocities, and accelerations might be of considerable assistance to the jury. In this situation, the trial court exercised its discretion in receiving the challenged expert testimony, and for this court to hold that in so doing it abused its discretion is to far exceed our functions in the review of discretionary matters.
It is obvious that the situation differs from that involved in Beckman v. Schroeder, 224 Minn. 370, 28 N. W. (2d) 629, where the expert’s opinion was based upon testimony of other witnesses; where the witness expressing it did not appear to have any skill or knowledge beyond that of the average person; and where the jury was as capable of weighing the evidence submitted and arriving at a conclusion based thereon as was the witness. In such cases where both parties have presented their versions of the accident through eyewitnesses and where the expert called to testify cannot be said to have had any training in the field involved beyond that of the average layman, there is no room for the exercise of judicial discretion, and the so-called expert testimony should, of course, be excluded. But where, as here, the only eyewitness to an accident is an interested party, and the jurors may not possess the special training necessary to reconstruct it on the basis of the physical evidence available, it would seem that expert testimony thereon would be of great assistance to the jury.
This view is in accord with that of a number of decisions in this court. Storbakken v. Soderberg, 246 Minn. 434, 75 N. W. (2d) 496; Woyak v. Konieske, 237 Minn. 213, 54 N. W. (2d) 649, 33 A. L. R. (2d) 1241; Moeller v. St. Paul City Ry. Co. 218 Minn. 353, 16 N. W. (2d) 289, 156 A. L. R. 371; Lestico v. Kuehner, 204 Minn. 125, 283 N. W. 122; Carson v. Turrish, 140 Minn. 445, 168 N. W. 349, L. R. A. 1918F, 154. A number of other jurisdictions have likewise adopted this point of view. See, Een v. Consolidated Freightways (D. N. D.) 120 F. Supp. 289, affirmed (8 Cir.) 220 F. (2d) 82; Zelayeta v. Pacific Greyhound Lines, 104 Cal. App. (2d) 716, 232 P. (2d) 572; People v. Haeussler, 41 Cal. (2d) 252, 260 P. (2d) 8; Wells Trackways v. Cebrian, 122 Cal. App. (2d) 666, 265 P. (2d) 557; Ison v. Stewart, 105 Colo. 55, 94 P. (2d) 701; Ferguson v. Hurford, 132 Colo. 507, 290 P. (2d) 229; Nielsen v. Wessels, 247 Iowa *31213, 73 N. W. (2d) 83; Beaudin v. Continental Baking Co. 94 N. H. 202, 50 A. (2d) 77; Thorstenson v. Degler, 15 Wash. (2d) 211, 129 P. (2d) 996. (There is an interesting discussion of the subject in Een v. Consolidated Freightways, supra. Therein, Beckman v. Schroeder, supra, is considered and distinguished.)