Kimberly R. Smith, the plaintiff-appellant, suffered severe injuries resulting in quadriplegia from a 1997 car accident while driving her 1994 BMW. She filed a product liability lawsuit against BMW North America, BMW AG, and Roadshow Enterprises, claiming that a faulty airbag failed to deploy, which would have mitigated her injuries. BMW sought to exclude the testimonies of Smith's expert witnesses and moved for summary judgment. The district court conducted a Daubert hearing, ultimately excluding the expert testimony under Federal Rule of Evidence 702, concluding that without this testimony, Smith could not establish a prima facie case. Consequently, the court granted BMW's summary judgment motion and denied Smith's subsequent motion for relief under Rule 60(b). Smith appealed both the summary judgment and the denial of her Rule 60(b) motion, leading to the consolidation of her appeals. The Eighth Circuit vacated the district court's summary judgment and remanded for further proceedings. During the Daubert hearing, Dr. Larry Williams, an accident reconstructionist, testified that the barrier equivalent velocity of Smith's vehicle at impact was between 22 to 26 miles per hour, arguing that a properly functioning airbag would have deployed under these conditions. Smith had also intended to present testimony from Dr. Stephen Erickson, a forensic pathologist, regarding the preventability of her injuries had the airbag deployed.
Dr. Williams collaborated with a trooper at an auto salvage yard, integrating the trooper’s observations about vehicle debris and travel path into his analysis. The trooper's statement that the vehicle climbed an embankment led Dr. Williams to determine that it was moving into the mountain. He also consulted the tow-truck driver, reviewed deposition testimonies and police reports, and examined photographs of the vehicle. Dr. Williams concluded that the primary direction of force was no more than 20 degrees into the front and used -20° as the input for the EDCrash computer program. He explained that the passenger-to-driver side damage resulted from the vehicle's counterclockwise rotation upon impact.
To analyze deformation, Dr. Williams created a scale drawing of the vehicle and overlaid a rectangle representing its undamaged state, measuring displacement from the rectangle to the damaged vehicle at six points. This data, along with the principal direction of force and vehicle structure information, informed the EDCrash program's calculation of barrier equivalent velocity.
In contrast, Mr. Bentley, an expert for BMW, disputed Dr. Williams' measurements and conclusions, claiming that the estimated principal direction of force could not account for the observed displacement. Bentley criticized the use of a rectangular representation, asserting it led to inflated displacement measurements due to air gaps and recommended using an exemplar representation per Tumbas protocol for accuracy. Dr. Williams defended his rectangular model, arguing it accounted for restitution, which is the rebound of the vehicle post-impact, noting that such measurements typically underestimate actual deformation because they exclude restitution effects.
Additionally, Smith sought to introduce Dr. Erickson's forensic pathology testimony, which was based on his observations of the accident scene, discussions with involved professionals, examination of the vehicle, witness interviews, review of medical records, and Dr. Williams' opinions.
Dr. Erickson concluded that Smith's neck injury occurred at the moment her vehicle struck the embankment, rather than during the rollover, based on several factors: the nature of the neck injury indicated a wedge fracture typical of rapid deceleration, there was no evidence of head trauma, and Smith was restrained by a seatbelt. He asserted that had the airbag deployed, it could have mitigated her neck injuries. The district court excluded the testimonies of Drs. Williams and Erickson, ruling them unreliable under Fed. R. Evid. 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms., leading to a summary judgment favoring BMW since Smith lacked expert testimony to support her products liability claim. Smith's subsequent motions to vacate this judgment, citing reliance on false testimony, were denied. On appeal, the court determined the district court's summary judgment should be vacated and remanded for further proceedings, while dismissing Smith’s appeal regarding the 60(b) motion. The admissibility of expert testimony is governed by Rule 702, which requires that it be based on sufficient data, reliable methods, and proper application to the case facts. The court reviews the exclusion of such testimony for abuse of discretion and summary judgment de novo, emphasizing that it is appropriate only when no genuine issues of material fact exist. An appellate court may vacate a summary judgment if it finds evidence that should have been admitted creates a genuine issue of material fact.
Dr. Erickson's proposed testimony regarding the cause of Smith's neck injuries was excluded by the district court, which determined his opinions lacked scientific and medical reliability. The court presented seven reasons for this decision: 1) Dr. Erickson's forensic pathology experience was not relevant to assessing neck injuries from acceleration-deceleration forces in car accidents; 2) he could not estimate the force of the initial impact or the force necessary to cause a neck break; 3) his reliance on medical rather than scientific knowledge; 4) the absence of a biomechanical evaluation; 5) his inability to calculate possible accelerations involved; 6) his dependence on another expert's opinion regarding the impact velocity; and 7) his flawed reasoning regarding the likelihood of injury cause based on the absence of head trauma.
The court's main concern was Dr. Erickson's lack of expertise in biomechanics, physics, or engineering, leading to the exclusion of his testimony on the forces involved in the accident. However, Dr. Erickson's opinion—that Smith's injury occurred upon impact with the embankment rather than during the rollover—was based on his medical expertise related to the specific injuries sustained. The document cites relevant case law, indicating that an expert's testimony does not need to directly resolve the ultimate issue but should be relevant to the factual evaluation. The district court's exclusion of Dr. Erickson’s testimony regarding the timing and nature of Smith’s injuries, as well as his opinion on air bag effectiveness, was deemed an abuse of discretion, as these were within his field of knowledge.
Dr. Erickson's opinion on the potential impact of a properly deployed airbag in reducing or preventing Smith's injuries is deemed valid despite his inability to quantify the extent of neck flexion before deployment. The court finds that his expertise allows for a reasonable medical certainty that an airbag would have mitigated Smith's injuries.
Conversely, Dr. Williams' proposed testimony was excluded by the district court due to fundamental flaws in his methodology using the EDCrash program, rendering his opinions unreliable. The court specifically criticized his estimates of the principal direction of force and displacement measurements.
Regarding the principal direction of force, the court determined that Dr. Williams' estimate of a maximum of 20 degrees into the hill was inconsistent with visible damage to the vehicle and basic physics principles. His explanation for the observed passenger-to-driver side displacement was not convincingly supported, leading the court to favor Mr. Bentley's testimony that significant counterclockwise rotation would not be possible at that angle.
As for the measurement of frontal displacement, the court found Dr. Williams’ method flawed because he did not account for air gaps in his measurements, which contradicted established guidelines. The court acknowledged that while the rectangular method could be valid, Dr. Williams failed to appropriately subtract these air gaps. Overall, the district court upheld its decision to exclude Dr. Williams' testimony based on these methodological deficiencies.
Smith failed to provide evidence explaining how the air gaps between an undamaged vehicle's curve and a rectangular approximation could offset the lack of a restitution measurement. The district court found Dr. Williams’ measurement of a twenty-five-inch displacement flawed, as he measured from a grid baseline to a point on the vehicle's side. Consequently, the court excluded Dr. Williams’ testimony regarding barrier equivalent velocity due to these measurement inaccuracies. Although the court's reasoning for exclusion was not universally accepted, it noted that Dr. Williams’ method yielded an implausible barrier equivalent velocity for an undamaged vehicle.
The district court highlighted Smith's failure to recall Dr. Williams to counter Mr. Bentley's damaging testimony, which does not justify excluding Dr. Williams’ testimony, as expert disagreements are typical and relevant for jury consideration. Generally, the factual basis of an expert's opinion pertains to credibility rather than admissibility, and only fundamentally unsupported opinions can be excluded.
Dr. Williams’ flawed displacement measurements rendered his derived barrier equivalent velocity inadmissible. However, the district court erroneously granted summary judgment, as Mr. Blaisdell, BMW’s accident reconstructionist, adjusted Dr. Williams' measurements to account for air gaps, producing a barrier equivalent velocity of 14.4 miles-per-hour, which raises material factual issues regarding airbag deployment. BMW’s submission of these results was available to the court at summary judgment, along with admissible testimony from Dr. Williams and Dr. Erickson, making summary judgment inappropriate.
The appeal concerning the denial of relief under Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) is dismissed, the summary judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with the opinion and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
