Majors v. Owens
| Decision Date | 24 December 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 20140465–CA.,20140465–CA. |
| Citation | 365 P.3d 165 |
| Parties | Daniel MAJORS and Patrisha Majors, Appellants, v. Kent OWENS and Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation, Appellees. |
| Court | Utah Court of Appeals |
Michael P. Petrogeorge, Salt Lake City, for Appellees.
Opinion
¶ 1 Daniel and Patrisha Majors appeal from the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Kent Owens and Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation (collectively, Defendants). The Majorses contend that the district court erred by excluding the causation testimony of their treating physicians and by then granting summary judgment on the basis that the Majorses failed to offer evidence regarding the causation element of their tort claim. We agree and therefore reverse and remand.
¶ 2 On July 18, 2009, the Majorses were involved in a motor vehicle collision in Magna, Utah. Kennecott employee Kent Owens was driving the other vehicle involved in the crash. The Majorses sued Owens and Kennecott, raising a claim for negligence against Owens and seeking to hold Kennecott vicariously liable. The Majorses alleged that the motor vehicle collision caused them to suffer various injuries, including neck and back pain.
¶ 3 In support of their claim, the Majorses disclosed several treating physicians as witnesses: Benjamin Krogh, Layne Hermansen, and Kade Huntsman. The physicians were designated as witnesses who would provide expert testimony "with regard to the treatment they have provided" and "regarding the issue of causation as it relates to their treatment to the subject accident." Defendants deposed each of these witnesses.
¶ 4 After discovery, Defendants filed a combined motion in limine and motion for summary judgment. As to the motion in limine, Defendants argued that the court should preclude the Majorses' treating physician experts from testifying on the issue of causation because the physicians' opinions were not based on any reliable facts or methodology. They supported this argument by asserting that the physicians' opinions were based on the Majorses' reports and unverified factual information about the collision and that the opinions did not take into consideration prior traumas or preexisting conditions. Relying on these purported shortcomings and one treating physician's statement that he "assumed" that the Majorses' injuries were caused by the motor vehicle collision, Defendants asserted that all of the Majorses' designated experts "merely assumed that the Accident was the cause of the alleged injuries." Thus, Defendants argued, the proposed testimony of the treating physicians failed to establish a causal connection between the Majorses' alleged damages and the collision and did not meet the threshold requirements for admissibility under rule 702 of the Utah Rules of Evidence. Defendants therefore urged the court to grant their motion for summary judgment because the Majorses failed to produce admissible evidence to support a necessary element of their claim.
¶ 5 The Majorses opposed the motions. They argued that their treating physicians' testimony on the issue of causation met the threshold for admissibility and that their physicians' opinions were based on reliable facts and methodology because the physicians "took a history of the subject event, a medical history, performed physical examinations, provided treatment and reviewed imaging studies in arriving at their opinions." The Majorses asserted that Defendants' "attacks on the reliability of [the physicians'] testimony would go only to the weight of the evidence, not to the ... admissibility." The Majorses further argued that summary judgment was inappropriate because they offered admissible evidence supporting the elements of their claim and because disputed issues of fact remained for trial.
The court then concluded that if the treating physicians were allowed to testify, "the jury would engage in speculation rather than fact finding." As a result, the court excluded the treating physicians' testimony and ruled that in the absence of this testimony, the Majorses could not establish the required element of causation. Accordingly, the district court dismissed the Majorses' claim with prejudice. This appeal ensued.
ISSUES AND STANDARDS OF REVIEW
¶ 7 The Majorses contend the district court exceeded its discretion by excluding their treating physicians' testimony on the issue of causation. " ‘The trial court has wide discretion in determining the admissibility of expert testimony,’ and we will disturb a court's exclusion of expert testimony only when it ‘exceeds the limits of reasonability.’ " Gunn Hill Dairy Props., LLC v. Los Angeles Dep't of Water & Power, 2012 UT App 20, ¶¶ 16, 31, 269 P.3d 980 (quoting Eskelson v. Davis Hosp. & Med. Ctr., 2010 UT 59, ¶ 5, 242 P.3d 762 ).
Our review of the district court's exercise of its discretion include[s] review to ensure that no mistakes of law affected a lower court's use of its discretion. Thus, if the district court erred in interpreting Utah Rule of Evidence 702 when it [excluded the expert testimony], it did not act within the limits of reasonability, and we will not defer to the evidentiary decision.
Eskelson, 2010 UT 59, ¶ 5, 242 P.3d 762 () (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
¶ 8 The Majorses also contend that the district court erred in granting summary judgment on the ground that they failed to provide admissible evidence to support the causation element of their claim. This court "reviews a trial court's legal conclusions and ultimate grant or denial of summary judgment for correctness, and views the facts and all reasonable inferences drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party." Orvis v. Johnson, 2008 UT 2, ¶ 6, 177 P.3d 600 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
¶ 9 The parties implicitly agree that expert witness testimony on causation is required to establish a causal link between Defendants' alleged negligent act and the Majorses' injuries. See Fox v. Brigham Young Univ., 2007 UT App 406, ¶ 22, 176 P.3d 446. The parties similarly do not dispute that treating physicians are capable of providing such testimony. And the parties agree that the treating physicians in this case offered opinions with regard to causation. But they disagree about whether the methods used by the physicians in coming to those opinions are reliable. In particular, the Majorses contend that the district court improperly concluded that the experts' testimony did not meet the threshold indicia of reliability required for admission under rule 702 of the Utah Rules of Evidence. Thus, the issue on appeal is whether the treating physicians' opinions regarding causation were sufficiently reliable to be admissible under rule 702.
¶ 10 Rule 702 allows a court to admit a qualified expert's testimony, Utah R. Evid. 702(a), if the proponent makes "a threshold showing that the principles or methods that are underlying in the testimony (1) are reliable, (2) are based upon sufficient facts or data, and (3) have been reliably applied to the facts," id. R. 702(b). The district court in this case concluded that the Majorses' treating physicians did not meet rule 702's threshold, because, in the district court's view, the physicians merely assumed causation based on the "temporal connection between the accident and the [Majorses'] self-reported onset of symptoms" and they did not consider the Majorses' "medical histories as contributing or aggravating factors." The district court faulted the treating physicians for failing to perform independent analyses or evaluations, concluding that they reached "assumptions based on chronology without any underlying analysis of the [Majorses'] prior medical problems."
¶ 11 The Majorses contend that the district court erred in excluding the treating physicians' testimony on this basis. They assert that in reaching conclusions regarding the causation of their injuries, their treating physicians appropriately relied upon the temporal relationship between the collision and injuries and upon the patients' descriptions of trauma and the onset of symptoms. Defendants seemingly concede that treating physicians may take such considerations into account.1 But Defendants contend that "under the facts of this case, it was not sufficient for the treating physicians to merely assume causation based on these factors alone." The Majorses respond that their experts' opinions were based on other appropriate considerations, including...
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