Court Opinion

ID: 9481805
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:32:26.095179+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:35.324558
License: Public Domain

K.K. HALL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I agree with the salient legal points of the majority opinion. The district court misstated the “100-mile” rule, and there is no categorical exclusion of “discovery” depositions at trial.
On the other hand, the district court has broad discretion on questions of admissibility of evidence and broad power over the management of litigation before it. In order to avoid disputes like this one, the district court required the parties to prepare an integrated pretrial order. Plaintiff disclosed that Dr. Amico would be a witness, but did not propose to offer his deposition. The defendants had no notice of plaintiff’s intention to use the deposition; the deposition was taken at the earliest stages of the litigation. The rules of civil procedure permit the admission of Amico’s deposition, but they do not require it. The district court concluded that it would be unfair to ambush the defendants with the deposition at the last moment. I do not believe that this ruling was an abuse of discretion.
Amico’s deposition, at least to the extent it expressed an opinion, would have drawn a meritorious motion to strike anyway. Both parties agree that the accident had nothing to do with the existence of the aneurysm, which was a congenital condition. The theory of plaintiff’s ease is that the minor truck collision* caused Tatman’s blood pressure to rise uncontrollably, which in turn caused the aneurysm to rupture when it did. As merely stating this theory reveals, proximate causation was the weak link of plaintiff’s case. More roadblocks were presented by Tatman’s chronic obesity and resulting long history (from at least 1981) of high blood pressure.
The district court may admit expert opinions that “assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.” Fed.R.Evid. 702. Even where the testimony would provide this assistance, the court may exclude it if its probative value is outweighed by its unfairly prejudicial effect. Fed.R.Evid. 403. District courts should be mindful of Rule 403 when “expert” opinions are offered that stretch *513the limits of available supporting evidence. The very label “expert” is prejudicial in a way, because it might lead jurors to lend more credence to an opinion than it deserves.
Dr. Amico is an osteopath who treated Tatman for his back and neck pain following the accident. In the deposition at issue, Amico testified that he did not treat Tatman for high blood pressure at this time, and had not treated him at all for three years prior to the accident. Though Tatman’s blood pressure was usually taken at office visits, Amico provided no examples of the supposed wide swings and did not explain their significance or why he was not alarmed by them while Tatman was alive. He did not even know what blood pressure medication Tatman was taking at the time, though Tatman confessed not taking his medication regularly on at least one office visit.
Dr. Wecht, who never met Tatman, was even more in the dark than Amico. He had not reviewed the records of a physician who actually treated Tatman for hypertension in 1985. He did not know anything about Tatman’s life or sources of stress in it other than the accident, including one family incident that drove Tatman to seek psychiatric counseling. The district court, which observed Wecht’s live testimony, commented, “It was quite obvious that Doctor Wecht didn’t think he needed evidence to base his opinion on.” My review of his testimony from the admittedly cold record yields the same observation.
Conjecture does not substitute for proof merely by being filtered through a willing expert’s mouth. With or without the proffered expert testimony, a fair-minded trier of fact could not have found proximate causation established. Accordingly, I would affirm.
I respectfully dissent.

 I should describe the severity of the impact, lest it be implicitly overstated by silence. The collision was at such a low speed that it caused only $55.28 of damage to Tatman's vehicle. The un-contradicted opinion of an accident reconstruction expert who testified for the defendants placed the force of the impact as equal to that experienced during ordinary braking, though from the opposite direction.