Lurry v. City of Joliet
| Decision Date | 21 February 2023 |
| Docket Number | 20 C 4545 |
| Parties | NICOLE LURRY, as Special Administrator of the Estate of Eric Lurry, Jr., deceased,, v. CITY OF JOLIET et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Before the Court are motions to exclude testimony from five experts. Plaintiff Nicole Lurry, acting as special administrator of the estate of her late husband, Eric Lurry, moves to exclude testimony from two experts proposed by Defendants. (Dkts. 75 76). Defendants City of Joliet and Officers Douglas May, Jose Tellez, Andrew McCue, and Jeremy Harrison move to exclude testimony from three experts proposed by Plaintiff. . For the following reasons, the Court grants in part and denies in part both of Plaintiff's Motions to Exclude Defendants' proposed expert testimony. [75, 76] The Court also grants in part and denies in part Defendants' Motion to Exclude Plaintiff's proposed expert testimony. [77]
This case arises from the death of Eric Lurry, Jr., while in custody of Joliet police. Mr. Lurry was a passenger in his friend Kenan Kinney's car when Joliet Police Officer Wietting-not a defendant in this case-pulled Kinney over. Wietting arrested Kinney after searching his car and finding baggies thought to contain cocaine and heroin. Defendant Officers Tellez and McCue arrived on the scene, patted Mr. Lurry down and, finding nothing, told him he could leave. But minutes later, they stopped him again, and Tellez performed another pat-down search. He felt through Mr. Lurry's clothes a plastic bag thought to contain narcotics. They arrested Mr. Lurry and, after a brief struggle, put him in the back of the squad car. At some point, Mr. Lurry put bags in his mouth.
The officers took him to the Joliet Police Station. When they arrived, Tellez told Defendant Officer Douglas May that Mr. Lurry had put drugs in his mouth and may have swallowed them. By then, Lurry was not verbally or physically responsive to the officers' instructions. May pulled Mr. Lurry's chin down, opened his mouth, and held his nose. McCue put his asp (baton) in Mr. Lurry's mouth and pulled out a bag containing a white powdery substance later determined to be a combination of cocaine, fentanyl, and heroin.
Defendant Lt. Jeremy Harrison called for medical assistance. Mr. Lurry was taken out of the squad car and another officer performed CPR. Lurry coughed up a plastic bag and then shook violently on the ground. EMTs arrived on the scene to transport him to the hospital, but Mr. Lurry did not survive. The medical examiner, Dr. Michel Humilier, ruled his death was caused by an accidental overdose of heroin, fentanyl, and cocaine.
Plaintiff Nicole Lurry, as special administrator of the estate of her husband, brings claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the individual Defendants for allegedly violating Mr. Lurry's Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. (Dkt. 54 at 13-20). She also brings several state-law claims against individual Defendants. (Id. at 8-12). Finally, Plaintiff brings a Monell claim[1]and state-law indemnification and respondeat superior claims against the City of Joliet. (Id. at 20-28).
Plaintiff has filed Daubert motions to exclude testimony from two of Defendants' expert witnesses. (Dkts. 75, 76). Defendants have filed Daubert motions to exclude testimony from three of Plaintiff's expert witnesses. (Dkts. 77-80). The Court held hearings on November 30, 2022, and December 1, 2022, to examine each proposed expert witness. (Dkts. 102, 103).
“The admissibility of expert testimony is governed by Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and the Supreme Court's opinion in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993).” Lewis v. CITGO Petroleum Corp., 561 F.3d 698, 705 (7th Cir. 2009). Trial judges act as gatekeepers to screen expert testimony for relevance and reliability. Daubert, 509 U.S. at 589; see also C.W. ex rel. Wood v. Textron, Inc., 807 F.3d 827, 834 (7th Cir. 2015). Rule 702 permits opinion testimony from a “witness who is qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education” if his or her expertise will assist the trier of fact “to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue,” and “the testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data, the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods, and the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case.” Fed.R.Evid. 702. Thus, “the key to the gate is not the ultimate correctness of the expert's conclusions but rather the soundness and care with which the expert arrived at her opinion.” Burton v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Inc., 994 F.3d 791, 826 (7th Cir. 2021) (quoting Schultz v. Akzo Nobel Paints, LLC, 721 F.3d 426, 431 (7th Cir. 2013)) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court must analyze each of an expert's conclusions individually. Hall v. Flannery, 840 F.3d 922, 926 (7th Cir. 2016).
District courts apply Daubert flexibly, consistent with the Court's gatekeeping function. Kumho Tire Co. Ltd. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137, 147 (1999). The Court uses a three-part analysis when applying the Daubert framework to proposed Rule 702 evidence. The Court determines: (1) “whether the witness is qualified;” (2) “whether the expert's methodology is scientifically reliable;” and (3) “whether the testimony will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or determine a fact in issue.” Myers v. Ill. Cent. R.R. Co., 629 F.3d 639, 644 (7th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). The expert's proponent bears the burden of demonstrating that the testimony would satisfy the Daubert standard by a preponderance of the evidence. See Gopalratnam v. Hewlett-Packard Co., 877 F.3d 771, 782 (7th Cir. 2017); see also Fed.R.Evid. 702 advisory committee's note to 2000 amendment. Whether to admit expert testimony rests within the Court's sound discretion. Gen. Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 142 (1997).
Plaintiff objects that testimony proposed by two of Defendants' expert witnesses-Dr. William Smock, a physician of emergency medicine, and John “Jack” Ryan, a police practices and procedures expert-are inadmissible under Rule 702 and Daubert.
Plaintiff seeks to exclude all testimony and opinions of Defendants' expert Dr. William Smock related to: (1) Mr. Lurry's cause of death; (2) Mr. Lurry's purported “reckless, suicidal acts” during his arrest; (3) the propriety of Defendant Officers' conduct; and (4) Dr. Smock's prior work in the George Floyd case. (Dkt. 75 at 2). The Court takes each objection in turn.
First, Plaintiff contends that Dr. Smock is not qualified to opine on Mr. Lurry's cause of death or the rate at which Mr. Lurry absorbed the narcotics he ingested because this falls outside his medical specialization as indicated by his education and experience. (Dkt. 75 at 4-8). “Whether a witness is qualified as an expert can only be determined by comparing the area in which the witness has superior knowledge, skill, experience, or education with the subject matter of the witness's testimony.” Gayton v. McCoy, 593 F.3d 610, 616 (7th Cir. 2010) (quoting Carroll v. Otis Elevator Co., 896 F.2d 210, 212 (7th Cir. 1990)). “[W]hile extensive academic and practical expertise in an area is certainly sufficient to qualify a potential witness as an expert, Rule 702 specifically contemplates the admission of testimony by experts whose knowledge is based on experience.” Trs. of Chi. Painters & Decorators Pension, Health & Welfare, & Deferred Sav. Plan Tr. Funds v. Royal Int'l Drywall & Decorating, Inc., 493 F.3d 782, 787 (7th Cir. 2007) (internal citation omitted); see also United States v. Truitt, 938 F.3d 885, 889-90 (7th Cir. 2019) ().
Dr. Smock earned his bachelor's degree from Centre College and a master's degree in anatomy in 1987. (Dkt. 75-3 at 3). He earned his medical degree from the University of Louisville School of Medicine in 1990. (Id.) He then completed his residency in emergency medicine in 1993 and a fellowship in clinical forensic medicine in 1994. (Id.) He has over thirty years' experience working at Louisville area hospitals as a Doctor of Emergency Medicine. (Id. at 1-3). He has since held several professorships at the University of Louisville and is currently a Clinical Professor in its Department of Emergency Medicine. (Id. at 1-3). He also worked as an Assistant Medical Examiner for six years. (Id. at 3). During that time, he attended “thousands” of autopsies. (Dkt. 105 at 76:24-77:9). Since 1997, he has been a Forensic Consultant for Kentucky's Chief Medical Examiner's Office. (Dkt. 75-3 at 2-3). In that role, he “evaluate[s] the performance of other medical examiner's office[s and] the forensic pathologists.” (Dkt. 105 at 76:1-3). Additionally, Dr. Smock has co-edited three textbooks on forensic and emergency medicine, including one on strangulation. (Id. at 7).
In his years of experience as a physician, he has treated “hundreds, if not thousands” of patients presenting with drug intoxication who experienced cardiac arrhythmias due to consumption of illegal drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl. (Id. at 72:12-20). Likewise, as an attending ER physician, he has determined the cause and manner of death for patients who died from drug overdose “many, many...
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