Court Opinion

ID: 9710660
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:14:46.27964+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:20:57.633322
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE MYERSCOUGH, specially concurring in part and dissenting in part: I agree that the court correctly allowed into evidence data downloaded from the SDM and the related testimony. However, I respectfully disagree with the majority’s opinion affirming the trial court’s sua sponte striking plaintiff’s expert’s opinion on causation. This court found Page “ ‘did not employ knowledge and application of principles of science beyond the ken of the average juror’ ” 332 Ill. App. 3d at 784 and, therefore, struck Page’s testimony on causation and instructed the jury to disregard it. The majority affirmed on this issue but went on to point out that a jury does not need expert testimony to help it decide whether an inadvertently deployed air bag caused a driver to lose control of her car. This reasoning is circular. The majority affirms the trial court’s finding that defendant was not an expert, but then states expert testimony on causation is not necessary to determine whether an air bag may cause a driver to lose control of her car. First, I believe expert testimony on this issue may be persuasive and certainly can assist the trier of fact in understanding the evidence. Page was a mechanical engineer with 35 years of experience in the aerospace industry. Page’s testimony was based on everything he reviewed in this case, including General Motors’ documents, previous inadvertent deployments, the report of road conditions, and witnesses’ accounts, to reach the conclusion of inadvertent deployment and then causation. The causation opinion cannot be reached without the deployment opinion. These opinions cannot be isolated. Page’s qualifications are certainly greater than this court’s to determine causation in this case. At trial, defendants could cross-examine Page on the bases for his opinion and thereby discredit that opinion. But, for the court to emphasize the plaintiffs expert’s lack of qualifications by striking on its own motion part, perhaps the most crucial part, of the plaintiffs testimony is an abuse of discretion and reversible error. The trial court’s action here was highly prejudicial to plaintiffs case. Defendants had filed their motion in limine in October 2000, months prior to trial, seeking to block Page’s testimony. In November 2000, the trial court denied the motion. It was not until the middle of the jury trial that the court barred the testimony, surprising plaintiff and leaving plaintiff without a causation expert. The majority finds this error harmless because the jury did not reach the question of causation, deciding only that the air bag did not deploy. However, in the absence of any of plaintiff’s causation testimony, the jury logically could find the air bag did not deploy. Moreover, if expert testimony is not necessary on causation, why cannot defendants, or anyone else for that matter, testify to their opinion on causation? This is not testimony on the ultimate issue in the case — was defendant negligent? — so Page should have been permitted to testify. Moreover, Page was plaintiffs only expert who testified to causation. Plaintiffs reconstruction expert did not give an opinion regarding the air bag actually being deployed: “ ‘[t]he Cavalier appeared to be driven by a person who could have been stunned, but not certainly out of control’; and (2) he could think of no other cause for Danielle’s lack of reaction to the approaching hazard of Reed’s step van.” 332 Ill. App. 3d at 776. A vehicle appearing to be driven by one who could have been stunned, and being unable to think of no cause for lack of driver reaction, hardly states an opinion that an air bag deployment caused the accident. The lack of an expert on causation and the impact of striking Page’s testimony were clearly prejudicial and a surprise to plaintiffs. The trial court clearly abused its discretion and committed reversible error.