Seamon v. Remington Arms Co.

• Decision Date: 17 February 2016
• Docket Number: No. 14–15662.,14–15662.
• Parties: Cynthia SEAMON, individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of Kenneth Seamon, deceased, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. REMINGTON ARMS COMPANY, LLC, Defendant–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

813 F.3d 983

Cynthia SEAMON, individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of Kenneth Seamon, deceased, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.REMINGTON ARMS COMPANY, LLC, Defendant–Appellee.

No. 14–15662.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Feb. 17, 2016.

Timothy W. Monsees, Andrew S. Leroy, Monsees Mayer, Kansas City, MO, Benjamin L. Locklar, Beasley Allen Crow Methvin Portis & Miles, PC, Montgomery, AL, for Plaintiff–Appellant.

J. Banks Sewell, III Reid C. Carpenter, William H. Morrow, Lightfoot Franklin & White, LLC, Birmingham, AL, Dale G. Wills, Andrew Arthur Lothson, Swanson Martin & Bell, LLP, Chicago, IL, for Defendant–Appellee.

Before JORDAN and JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judges, and ROBRENO,^* District Judge.

ROBRENO, District Judge:

This appeal arises out of a product liability case against Remington Arms Company, a gun manufacturer. The district court excluded Plaintiff's expert—who concluded that Plaintiff's husband died as a result of a defect in the design of his rifle—finding his opinion speculative and thus unreliable. As a result, the district court granted summary judgment for Remington. Plaintiff now appeals.

We hold that the district court abused its discretion by excluding Plaintiff's expert, and so we reverse the judgment granting both the motion to exclude and the motion for summary judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

This case results from the tragic death of 49–year–old Kenneth Seamon. On November 26, 2011, Mr. Seamon was deer hunting alone in Autauga County, Alabama. After Mr. Seamon failed to respond to text messages from his wife and daughter, his son-in-law went to investigate and found Mr. Seamon dead in his elevated tree stand with a single gunshot wound to his chest. Law enforcement officers found Mr. Seamon's rifle on the ground thirteen feet below the tree stand; there was a rope attached to the rifle with carabiners and wrapped around the rifle's scope and safety. The rifle's safety mechanism was off, there was a spent cartridge casing in the rifle's chamber, and there was no gunshot residue on Mr. Seamon's body or clothing, which led responding officers to conclude that the rifle was at least five to ten feet away from Mr. Seamon when it fired. Moreover, Mr. Seamon's left hand was clenched around the front rail of his tree stand, while his right hand was positioned as if he had been grasping something. There are no known witnesses to the shooting. The question, therefore, is a veritable whodunit: what caused the rifle to fire?

Plaintiff–Appellant Cynthia Seamon ("Plaintiff" or "Appellant")—individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of Kenneth Seamon—filed suit against Defendant–Appellee Remington Arms Company, LLC ("Defendant" or "Appellee"), in the Middle District of Alabama. Plaintiff, Mr. Seamon's widow, alleged that Mr. Seamon died as a result of a defect in his Remington Model 700 bolt action rifle.

Both parties filed motions for summary judgment. Defendant also filed a motion to exclude the causation opinion of Plaintiff's liability expert, Charles Powell, who had concluded that the rifle fired due to a defect in its trigger system. The district court issued an opinion and order granting both of Defendant's motions and denying Plaintiff's motion. The court then entered final judgment in favor of Defendant and against Plaintiff. Plaintiff filed a motion for reconsideration, which the court denied.

Plaintiff now appeals, arguing that the district court erred both by excluding Powell's causation opinion and by granting Defendant's motion for summary judgment.

A proper analysis of the issues at stake requires detailed understandings of both the rifle's trigger system and Powell's opinion:

The Remington Model 700 rifle contains the Walker fire control system, named for its inventor. Critical in this case are two particular components of the system—the "connector" and the "sear." In firearms, the sear is the part of the trigger mechanism that holds back the firing pin. In the Walker system, unlike other trigger systems, a connector supports the sear by resting under it. When the trigger is pulled, the connector moves forward, allowing the sear to drop and the firing pin to snap forward and fire a cartridge.

The place at which the connector and the sear meet is called the "sear engagement." Because the connection occurs at the corners of these two components, the sear engagement is very small—roughly 0.025? (or less), according to rifle specifications. In other words, the connector supports the sear by roughly one-fortieth of an inch. As a result, even very slight movement of the connector allows the sear to drop and the rifle to fire.

According to Powell, rifles with Walker triggers have fired unexpectedly "a number of times in historical testing and experiences reported in documents produced by Remington Arms."¹ In Powell's view, the use of the connector is a design defect in the Walker system because the connector "does not reliably return to full engagement with the [s]ear each time the rifle bolt is cocked." If the connector does not fully return to its proper position supporting the sear, the sear can drop when it should not—which, in turn, causes the rifle to fire.

What causes the connector to fail to return to its proper position is the presence of "interferences" within the fire control housing. Powell's examples of interferences include dirt, corrosion deposits, condensation, frozen moisture, lubricant deposits, firing deposits, and manufacturing residue. Because the sear engagement is very small even when the rifle is in perfect condition, the presence of even minute particles can prevent the connector from engaging the sear correctly. When this occurs, the connector's position is precarious enough that if the rifle comes into contact with any external forces—anything that is not the rifle itself—the connector can fall out of place, causing the sear to drop and the rifle to fire, even without a trigger pull.

Because Powell found particles and deposits within the fire control housing during his examination of the rifle—the types of particles and deposits "that have been shown to be sources of interferences for the connector sear engagement" in other rifles with Walker systems—he believes that in this case, "interferences with the fire control components produced inadequate sear-connector engagement and allowed the subject rifle to release the firing pin and fire the subject rifle without any interaction with the trigger." He further believes that the firing may have been spurred by a "jar-off"—meaning that the rifle contacted an external force like the tree, rope, or ground, and the connector was further jarred out of position, allowing the rifle to fire.

Additionally, when Powell examined the rifle, the sear engagement was still at a safe level even despite the presence of particles and deposits. In fact, he stated during his deposition that when examining this type of rifle after an inadvertent firing, he has never seen a precipitous sear engagement due to interferences. However, he believes that he has not observed such conditions because by the time he receives a rifle for inspection, the rifle's actions have worked and the conditions are no longer the same as they were before the rifle fired. In other words, the fact that he has not seen a dangerously low sear engagement due to interferences after a rifle allegedly fired without a trigger pull does not mean those conditions did not exist before the rifle fired.

The district court excluded Powell's opinion, finding that it was speculative and thus unreliable.

II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW

We review the district court's exclusion of expert testimony for abuse of discretion. Rink v. Cheminova, Inc., 400 F.3d 1286, 1291 (11th Cir.2005). Under this standard, we reverse only if the district court "applies an incorrect legal standard, follows improper procedures in making the determination, or makes findings of fact that are clearly erroneous." Klay v. United Healthgroup, Inc., 376 F.3d 1092, 1096 (11th Cir.2004) (quoting Martin v. Automobili Lamborghini Exclusive, Inc., 307 F.3d 1332, 1336 (11th Cir.2002) ). In the Daubert context, we defer to the district court's ruling unless it is "manifestly erroneous." Id. "Because the task of evaluating the reliability of expert testimony is uniquely entrusted to the district court ..., we give the district court ‘considerable leeway’ in the execution of its duty." Id. (quoting Kumho Tire Co., Ltd. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137, 152, 119 S.Ct. 1167, 143 L.Ed.2d 238 (1999) ) (citation omitted).

We review the district court's ruling on a motion for summary judgment de novo, applying the same legal standards that bound the district court. Nat'l Fire Ins. Co. of Hartford v. Fortune Constr. Co., 320 F.3d 1260, 1267 (11th Cir.2003). Motions for summary judgment should be granted only when the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c) ; Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986).

III. DISCUSSION

A. Motion to Exclude Expert Testimony

Federal Rule of Evidence 702 governs the admissibility of expert testimony. It provides as follows:

A witness who is qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education may testify in the form of an opinion or otherwise if:

(a) the expert's scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue;

(b) the testimony is based on sufficient facts or data;

(c) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods; and

(d) the expert has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of the case.

Rule 702 compels district courts to perform a "gatekeeping" role concerning the admissibility of expert testimony....