Griffin v. New Prime Inc., 1:10-cv-1926-WSD
| Decision Date | 20 November 2013 |
| Docket Number | 1:10-cv-1926-WSD |
| Parties | DOUGLAS GRIFFIN et al., Plaintiffs, v. NEW PRIME INC. d/b/a PRIME, INC. et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Georgia |
This matter is before the Court on Plaintiffs' Motion to Exclude the Testimony of Defendants' Purported Expert Donald Roberts [106] ("Motion to Exclude Expert"), Plaintiffs' Motion in Limine [113], and Defendants' Motion in Limine [112].
This case arises from a fatal motor vehicle accident that occurred in August 2009 on Interstate 20 in Greene County, Georgia. Plaintiffs are Douglas Griffin, Barbara Griffin, Jessica Antico ("Antico"), Tami Deveroux ("Deveroux"), and Mary Davis as the statutory representative and administratrix of the Estate of Robert Neumann ("Neumann ") (collectively, "Plaintiffs"). Defendants are New Prime, Inc. d/b/a Prime, Inc. ("Prime") and Mohamadou Hassan ("Hassan")(collectively, "Defendants").
The accident at issue in this case occurred when a van, driven by Randall Bowman and in which Plaintiffs or their decedents were passengers, crashed into the rear of a tractor trailer, driven by Hassan for Prime. Plaintiffs allege that Hassan was negligent because he was traveling too slowly, below the interstate's posted minimum speed. Defendants dispute that Hassan was driving below the speed minimum and assert that Randall Bowman's negligence contributed to the accident.1
The trial of this matter is scheduled to begin on January 13, 2014. On June 12, 2013, Plaintiffs filed their Motion to Exclude Expert seeking to exclude certain opinions by Defendants' accident reconstruction expert Donald Roberts ("Roberts"). The opinions concern the speed of the truck driven by Hassan. On July 21, 2013, and July 22, 2013, the parties filed Motions in Limine seeking to exclude other evidence at trial. The motions are now before the Court.
The admissibility of expert opinions is governed by Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which provides:
If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise, if (1) the testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data, (2) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods, and (3) the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case.
Fed. R. Evid. 702. The proponent of expert testimony must establish, by a preponderance of the evidence, the factors set out in Rule 702. United States v. Frazier, 387 F.3d 1244, 1260 (11th Cir. 2004).
City of Tuscaloosa v. Harcros Chems., Inc., 158 F.3d 548, 562-63 (11th Cir. 1998)(footnote omitted) (citing Fed. R. Evid. 702; Daubert, 509 U.S. at 589). Daubert enumerated several factors which may be used in assessing expert testimony, including (1) whether a theory or technique applied by the expert can be or has been tested, (2) whether the theory has been subjected to peer review and publication, (3) in the case of a particular scientific technique, the Court should consider the known or potential rate of error, (4) and whether the theory or technique has gained general acceptance in the relevant community. 509 U.S. at 593-94. The Supreme Court emphasized that the Rule 702 inquiry is a flexible one. Id. at 594.
Plaintiffs seek to exclude Roberts's opinion that Hassan's truck was traveling at approximately 55 miles per hour at the time of the collision. Roberts's opinion is based on three separate analyses: (1) the average speed of Hassan's trip; (2) the change in velocity, or "delta v" data, shown in Bowman's van's event data recorder ("EDR"); and (3) a distance and braking analysis. Plaintiffs argue that each of these analyses is flawed.
Roberts's first method to determine the truck's speed was to calculate the average speed of Hassan's trip. Roberts determined, from a GPS system, the distance the truck traveled from its last refueling stop to the accident site, and then divided this distance by the time taken to travel it. Roberts determined that, in the last leg of his trip, Hassan traveled 47.7 miles in either 55 minutes 7 seconds or 52 minutes 13 seconds, depending on how the exact collision time is determined. Roberts thus calculated Hassan's average speed during the last leg of his trip as either 51.9 or 55.0 miles per hour. (See Roberts's Report [141-3] at 8, 18.)
In his deposition, Roberts conceded that his average speed calculation does not show Hassan's speed at any particular point, including at the time of the accident. (See Pls.' Ex. A [129-1] at 17-19.) Because the speed at the time of the accident is what is important, not the speed at other points, Plaintiffs argue that Roberts's opinion based on this "average" speed method should be excluded. The Court agrees. "[I]f an expert opinion does not have a 'valid scientific connection to the pertinent inquiry' it should be excluded because there is no 'fit.'" Boca Raton Comty. Hosp., Inc. v. Tenet Health Care Corp., 582 F.3d 1227, 1232 (11th Cir. 2009) (citing Daubert, 509 U.S. at 591-92; McDowell v. Brown, 392 F.3d 1283, 1299 (11th Cir. 2004)). The "pertinent inquiry" here is Hassan's speed at the time of the accident. The "average speed" method does not inform this inquiry. Roberts's opinion based on the "average speed" is excluded.
Roberts next evaluated data from Bowman's van's EDR to calculate Hassan's speed at the time of the collision. The EDR recorded, as 18.39 miles per hour, the van's change in velocity (the "delta v") over a 100-millisecond period during the collision. Roberts subtracted this value from the undisputed 71 mile-per-hour pre-collision speed of the van. This arithmetic function resulted in a calculated speed of the truck at the time of the collision of 53 miles per hour.
In his deposition, Roberts explained that, in collisions in which a vehicle crashes into a fixed object, the transfer of energy takes approximately 100 milliseconds. When a vehicle collides into a flexible object, the transfer of energy takes longer. Roberts testified that the collision in this case was most likely a collision with a flexible object because Bowman's van collided with Hassan's truck's flexible under-ride bar. The collision likely took between 100 and 200 milliseconds. Roberts conceded that the EDR recording, showing the "delta v" over only 100 milliseconds, does not show the total change in the van's velocity. He also stated that the "delta v" of the entire collision cannot be extrapolated from the known data—a "delta v" of 18.39 miles per hour over 100 milliseconds. Roberts's opinion based on the 100 milliseconds of EDR data does not show the total change in velocity of the van during the collision, which requires an evaluation of the "delta v" over the entire course of the collision. See Boca Raton, 582 F.3d at 1232. Roberts's testimony about this speed calculation methodology, however, and what it shows about the speed of the truck, even if the collision period was longer than the 100 milliseconds reported by the EDR, provides order of magnitude speed information about the truck's travel speed, that is sufficiently reliable and would be helpful to the jury. The precision of the calculation and how useful it may be to the jury can be explored on cross-examination.
Roberts next performed a "distance and braking analysis" to determine the pre-collision speed of Hassan's truck. Under this method, Roberts considered several variables, including the distance from the point of the collision to the truck's final stopping point, the deceleration rate of the truck, and Hassan's response time (i.e., the length of time from the point of the collision until Hassan began braking). Applying these variables to a specific and generally accepted formula, Roberts calculated that the truck's speed was between 44 and 61 miles per...
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