Court Opinion

ID: 9369856
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-09 20:00:34.220459+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:17.783777
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-11179   Document: 24-1    Date Filed: 02/09/2023   Page: 1 of 9

                                                [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                 In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                         ____________________

                              No. 22-11179
                         Non-Argument Calendar
                         ____________________

       WILLIAM BODNER,
       TERI BODNER,
                                                 Plaintiffs-Appellants,
       versus
       THUNDERBIRD PRODUCTS CORP.,
       PORTER, INC.,
       d.b.a. FORMULA BOATS,
                                               Defendants-Appellees,
       MOTION SYSTEMS CORPORATION,
                                                           Defendant.
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       2                       Opinion of the Court                  22-11179

                            ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Northern District of Florida
                   D.C. Docket No. 5:19-cv-00351-TKW-MJF
                           ____________________

       Before WILSON, LUCK, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              William Bodner was injured by the engine compartment
       hatch of a boat manufactured by Thunderbird Products Corp. and
       Porter, Inc., both doing business as “Formula Boats.” Bodner and
       his wife appeal the summary judgment for Formula Boats, arguing
       that the district court abused its discretion by excluding their liabil-
       ity expert. After careful review, we affirm.
           FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
              Bodner, a boat mechanic, was working on the engine of a
       boat manufactured by Formula Boats when the boat hit a wake and
       the 400-plus pound engine compartment hatch fell on him. Bodner
       and his wife sued Formula Boats, alleging that the hatch and its lift
       actuator (which raised and lowered the hatch) were defective and
       unsafe, and that Formula Boats didn’t adequately warn of this dan-
       ger.
              The Bodners’ theory of the case, as reflected by their liability
       expert Richard Schiehl’s report, was that the hatch lift actuator was
       defective as designed and installed for two reasons: (1) the physical
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       22-11179                Opinion of the Court                         3

       placement of the actuator on the hatch door; and (2) the actuator’s
       dynamic load capacity relative to the hatch door’s weight. More
       specifically, Schiehl opined, first, that “the configuration of the en-
       gine compartment and hatch require[d] the actuator [to] not be
       centered on the hatch.” As a result, “much of the hatch weight
       [was] starboard of the actuator”—such that “[t]he actuator, as in-
       stalled, carrie[d] part of the load from the side of the actuator, not
       in-line with the actuator movement.” Second, Schiehl opined that
       the actuator’s 500-pound dynamic load rating was insufficient to
       support the hatch door, which weighed 425 pounds with its built-
       in storage compartments empty.
               In Schiehl’s opinion, the boat needed either a higher-rated
       actuator or “a second actuator of the same rating . . . to support and
       stabilize the hatch.” Schiehl also cited—as a basis for his opinion
       that the actuator was defectively designed and installed—the fact
       that, when “[t]he actuator was replaced with the same model” ac-
       tuator after Bodner’s injury, the shaft of the replacement actuator
       bent “[i]mmediately after installation and during normal operation
       of the hatch.” On appeal, the Bodners refer to the bent-replace-
       ment part of Schiehl’s expert opinion as the “second basis for
       [Schiehl’s] [f]irst [o]pinion” and to the load-carrying part as the
       “third basis.”
             Finally, Schiehl also expressed the opinion that the actuator
       was unsafe because Formula Boats provided: (1) no backup or safe-
       guard to prop open the hatch door should the actuator fail; (2) no
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       4                      Opinion of the Court                 22-11179

       owner’s manual instructions about how to use the hatch safely; and
       (3) no warning labels related to use of the hatch.
              Formula Boats moved to exclude Schiehl’s opinions under
       Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993).
       It argued Schiehl was unqualified to render the opinions in his ex-
       pert report and that those opinions were unreliable and unhelpful.
               The district court granted Formula Boats’ Daubert motion.
       It found Schiehl unqualified, his methodology unreliable, and his
       opinion on warnings unhelpful. As to his qualifications, the district
       court explained that Schiehl was “not qualified to opine on the de-
       sign or location of the actuator, the need for a second actuator or
       strut, or the cause of the actuator’s failure because he’s not a me-
       chanical engineer” and it saw “nothing in his training or experience
       involving marine design or engineering.” The district court also
       found Schiehl’s opinions unreliable because “he didn’t perform any
       testing or provide any calculations to support his opinions.” The
       district court synthesized Schiehl’s opinion as concluding that, be-
       cause “the product failed, . . . it must have been defective,” and ex-
       plained “that sort of ipso facto, ipse dixit opinion is exactly what
       Daubert seeks to keep out of court.”
              The Bodners moved to clarify the breadth of the district
       court’s exclusion order, specifically asking whether it applied to the
       second and third bases of Schiehl’s first opinion. The district court
       explained that its order “necessarily encompass[ed] Mr. Schiehl’s
       ‘overall opinion’ as well as the supporting opinions/reasons he pro-
       vided for that opinion.”
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       22-11179               Opinion of the Court                         5

               Formula Boats moved for summary judgment, and the Bod-
       ners conceded that the motion should be granted because their lia-
       bility expert had been excluded. Based on this concession, the dis-
       trict court granted summary judgment for Formula Boats. The
       Bodners timely appealed.
                           STANDARD OF REVIEW
              We review a district court’s Daubert rulings under “the def-
       erential abuse-of-discretion” standard, meaning “we must affirm
       unless we find that the district court has made a clear error of judg-
       ment[] or has applied the wrong legal standard.” United States v.
       Frazier, 387 F.3d 1244, 1258–59 (11th Cir. 2004) (en banc). It’s “ax-
       iomatic that a district court enjoys ‘considerable leeway’ in making
       these determinations.” Id. (quoting Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmi-
       chael, 526 U.S. 137, 152 (1999)). “Even where a ruling excluding
       expert testimony is ‘outcome determinative’ and the basis for a
       grant of summary judgment, our review is not more searching than
       it would otherwise be.” Adams v. Lab’y Corp. of Am., 760 F.3d
       1322, 1327 (11th Cir. 2014) (quoting Gen. Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522
       U.S. 136, 142–43 (1997)).
                                  DISCUSSION
             The Bodners argue the district court erred in barring Schiehl
       from testifying on the second and third bases of his first opinion.
       They also say their failure to warn claim should’ve survived sum-
       mary judgment. We address each argument in turn.
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                 22-11179

                                  Daubert Order

              Under Federal Rule of Evidence 702, the proponent of an
       expert opinion bears the burden of establishing (1) that the expert
       witness is qualified and can offer (2) reliable and (3) helpful testi-
       mony. Frazier, 387 F.3d at 1260 (citing rule 702). The district court
       functions as “gatekeeper,” excluding expert testimony not meeting
       these three prerequisites so that the factfinder “bases its determina-
       tions on relevant and reliable evidence, rather than on speculation
       or otherwise unreliable conjecture.” See id. at 1272.
              The Bodners argue that the bent-replacement and load-car-
       rying parts of Schiehl’s opinion should’ve been carved out from
       (and thus should’ve survived) the district court’s order excluding
       Schiehl’s expert testimony because they were “based on personal
       observation” (that is, measurements and photographs taken either
       by Schiehl himself or by other eyewitnesses) and Schiehl’s “experi-
       ence in accident investigations, surveying, and hundreds of sea tri-
       als.” For support, the Bodners cite Adams, which held that a dis-
       trict court manifestly erred in excluding an expert opinion that
       “was based on a widely accepted methodology and grounded in the
       available physical evidence.” 760 F.3d at 1328–29 (quoting United
       Fire & Cas. Co. v. Whirlpool Corp., 704 F.3d 1338, 1342 (11th Cir.
       2013)).
             The Bodners haven’t shown that Schiehl’s bent-replacement
       and load-carrying opinions were reliable under Adams (and our
       other decisions applying Daubert). The Bodners put all their eggs
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       22-11179               Opinion of the Court                         7

       in Adams’s “grounded in the available physical evidence” basket,
       arguing that the district court erred by overlooking the fact that
       Schiehl’s opinions were rooted in his own personal observations.
               But Adams requires that those opinions be “based on a
       widely accepted methodology” too. Not only must expert testi-
       mony be “based upon sufficient facts or data,” Fed. R. Evid. 702(b),
       but an expert’s opinion is inadmissible when there’s “an analytical
       gap between the data and the opinion,” United States v. Pon, 963
       F.3d 1207, 1220 (11th Cir. 2020) (quoting Joiner, 522 U.S. at 146).
       Put another way, “an expert opinion is inadmissible when the only
       connection between the conclusion and the existing data is the ex-
       pert’s own assertions.” McDowell v. Brown, 392 F.3d 1283, 1300
       (11th Cir. 2004) (citing Joiner, 522 U.S. at 146). Ultimately, in as-
       sessing reliability, we “meticulously focus on the expert’s principles
       and methodology, and not on the conclusions that they generate.”
       Id. at 1298 (citation omitted).
               The problem for the Bodners is that Schiehl’s expert report
       reflected no methodology at all—let alone a “widely accepted
       methodology”—connecting the facts or data he considered to his
       opinions. See Adams, 760 F.3d at 1328–29. Schiehl identified a se-
       ries of facts: (1) the actuator failed just before Bodner was injured;
       (2) the replacement actuator bent; (3) the actuator was installed off-
       center (and so “carries part of the load from the side”); and (4) the
       actuator’s 500-pound dynamic load capacity wasn’t much higher
       than the hatch door’s 425-pound weight. And he cited those facts
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       8                       Opinion of the Court                 22-11179

       as the basis for his opinion that the actuator was defective as de-
       signed and installed.
               But Schiehl identified no analytical steps between those facts
       and his opinion. He admitted during his deposition that he didn’t
       “understand the underlying facts of how” the replacement actua-
       tor’s “rod bend occurred” because he wasn’t given “detail” on “the
       circumstances.” And he testified that he didn’t do any testing of
       the actuator’s load capacity. He also didn’t measure the hatch’s
       center of gravity, test the load-carrying difference between the star-
       board and port sides of the actuator, or test performance with ei-
       ther a second or higher-rated actuator installed. Schiehl couldn’t
       point to “any damage pattern on the [actuators] that would reflect
       any damage due to an unbalanced raising and lowering of the load”
       either.
               In sum, Schiehl completely failed to explain how or why ei-
       ther the bent replacement actuator, or the actuator’s off-center in-
       stallation, established defectiveness. The district court was thus left
       with only Schiehl’s say-so connecting his conclusions to the exist-
       ing data. See McDowell, 392 F.3d at 1300. In other words, there
       remained an unbridged “analytical gap” between Schiehl’s obser-
       vation of a bent replacement actuator and unbalanced load-carry-
       ing and his opinion that the actuator was defectively designed and
       installed. See Pon, 963 F.3d 1207, 1220. Therefore, even assuming
       Schiehl was qualified, the district court didn’t abuse its discretion
       in finding his testimony on the second and third bases unreliable
       and, thus, inadmissible.
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       22-11179               Opinion of the Court                       9

                             Failure to Warn Claim

              “The doctrine of invited error is implicated when a party in-
       duces or invites the district court into making an error.” United
       States v. Stone, 139 F.3d 822, 838 (11th Cir. 1998). We generally
       won’t review an error invited by a party. Id.
              Here, any error by the district court in granting summary
       judgment was induced or invited by the Bodners. After the district
       court announced its Daubert order, the Bodners told the district
       court that the ruling “gut[ted] the[ir] case.” They admitted that,
       with the expert testimony excluded, summary judgment was “in-
       evitable and inescapable” and any argument to the contrary was
       “frivolous or otherwise unsupportable.” “Based on . . . [this] con-
       cession,” the district court granted summary judgment for For-
       mula Boats.
               Having conceded that summary judgment was inevitable
       and inescapable after the Daubert order, we will not reverse the
       district court for doing exactly what the Bodners said it had to do.
       See Equal Emp. Opportunity Comm’n v. STME, LLC, 938 F.3d
       1305, 1312 (11th Cir. 2019) (“We will not consider this argument
       because whatever error, if any, the district court committed by not
       considering the EEOC’s claims as to Massage Envy’s failure to re-
       instate or rehire Lowe was invited by the EEOC.”).
             AFFIRMED.