Meador v. Starr Indem. & Liab. Ins. Co.

JASON MEADOR, Plaintiff v. STARR INDEMNITY & LIABILITY INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant

CIVIL ACTION NO. 19-2378 SECTION: "E" (3)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA

December 1, 2020

ORDER AND REASONS

Before the Court is Plaintiff Jason Meador's Motion in Limine to Exclude and/or Limit the Testimony of Defendant's accident reconstruction expert witness, Robert Rucoba.¹ Starr Indemnity & Liability Insurance Company ("Starr Indemnity") opposes the motion.² For the reasons that follow, the motion is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Jason Meador alleges that on or about June 25, 2018, Plaintiff was operating a truck owned by his employer, Gunite Express, LP ("Gunite"), when "suddenly and without warning" an unknown driver pulled in front of him, "causing the vehicle driven by [Plaintiff] to flip and eject [Plaintiff] from the driver's seat."³ As a result of the accident, Plaintiff suffered various bodily injuries.⁴ Plaintiff alleges Starr Indemnityissued an insurance policy to Gunite providing uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, which was in full force and effect at the time of the alleged incident.⁵ Plaintiff seeks to recover damages from Starr Indemnity for the injuries he allegedly suffered as a result of the unknown driver's negligence.⁶

Rucoba is a professional engineer licensed to practice in Texas.⁷ He received his Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Houston in 1984.⁸ He has worked as a laboratory technician, project engineer, and senior engineer.⁹ As a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers, he has published several technical papers on automobile crashes.¹⁰ According to Rucoba, his expert testimony has been accepted by several courts, including one Louisiana state court.¹¹ Plaintiff does not attack the qualifications of Robert Rucoba as an accident reconstruction expert. Instead, Plaintiff questions the reliability of Rucoba's opinions in this case because his methodology is not scientifically valid.

Rucoba was retained by Defendant to conduct an accident investigation and reconstruction of Plaintiff's June 25, 2018 accident. Rucoba's opinions are found on the last page of his January 22, 2020 report:

The likely cause of this crash was driver error on several accounts. First, an unidentified vehicle failed to yield the right of way and pulled out into the travel lanes in front of Meador. Secondly, Meador was driving his loaded gunite truck at a speed in excess of the posted speed limit. Thirdly, the signpost near the unidentified car's starting point is approximately 210 feet east of the first sign of physical evidence. At 67 miles per hour it would take 2.1 seconds before Meador's vehicle reached the first sign of physical evidence. Since Meador testified that he was on the eastern side of thatsignpost when he saw the passenger car begin to move, he would have additional seconds, above and beyond the 2.1 seconds, to avoid the car. Stated another way, Meador likely had enough time/distance to use his brakes to safely slow his vehicle down and it was not necessary to swerve off the road. Finally, in response to the vehicle pulling in front him Meador steered his vehicle to right and partially exited the pavement and entered the shoulder. Meador then abruptly steered his vehicle to regain the road rather than first slowing down before steering back onto the road in a controlled manner. This series of events is recognized as the single most common cause of rollover crashes and is one that will cause rollover of all vehicle types. The Louisiana Commercial Motor Vehicle Drivers Handbook provides off-road situational guidelines, "Stay on the Shoulder. If the shoulder is clear, stay on it until your vehicle has come to a stop. Signal and check your mirrors before pulling back onto the road." The vehicle's reentry path confirms that Meador did not follow the Drivers Handbook guidelines.¹²

The opinions expressed by Rucoba may be summarized as:

1) A phantom driver entered the roadway contributing to the cause of the accident;

2) Plaintiff's speeding contributed to the cause of the accident;

3) Plaintiff contributed to the cause of the accident because he had sufficient time and distance to slow down and there was no need for him to swerve off the roadway;

4) Plaintiff failed to comply with recommendations from the Louisiana Commercial Motor Vehicle Driver's Manual because, rather than slowing down on the shoulder and steering back onto the roadway in a controlled manner, he abruptly steered his vehicle back onto the roadway.

Plaintiff argues the opinions of Rucoba, summarized above, should be excluded "because the methods used to construct his expert report are unreliable."¹³ In arguing that Rucoba's testimony fails to meet the statutory requirements of Rule 702,¹⁴ Meador offers five arguments: (1) Rucoba did not account for braking factors and relied on an arbitrary distance for the phantom vehicle;¹⁵ (2) Rucoba did not investigate the accident scene until 16 months after the incident and relied on pictures for measurements and observations;¹⁶(3) Rucoba ran tests with a truck that was significantly heavier and an axle lesser than Plaintiff's truck;¹⁷ (4) Rucoba's findings regarding the Louisiana Commercial Motor Vehicle Driver's Manual (the "Manual") rules are inconsistent with the rules themselves;¹⁸ and (5) Rucoba drew irrelevant or incorrect conclusions from Plaintiff's driving speed.¹⁹

Starr Indemnity opposes the motion and argues: (1) Rucoba relied on an accurate approximation of the distance for the phantom vehicle;²⁰ (2) the use of photogrammetric analysis is a commonly accepted methodology;²¹ (3) tests were never run and the weight and additional axle of the exemplar truck were never used;²² (4) the opinions were, in fact, consistent with the Handbook rules;²³ and (5) Plaintiff's speeding with a full cement truck is relevant to the accident.²⁴

STANDARD

Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence governs the admissibility of expert witness testimony:

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.²⁵

The United States Supreme Court's decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.,²⁶ provides the analytical framework for determining whether expert testimony is admissible under Rule 702.

Under Daubert, courts, as "gatekeepers," are tasked with making a preliminary assessment of whether expert testimony is both relevant and reliable.²⁷ The party offering the expert opinion must show by a preponderance of the evidence that the expert's testimony is reliable and relevant.²⁸

The reliability of expert testimony "is determined by assessing whether the reasoning or methodology underlying the testimony is scientifically valid."²⁹ In Daubert, the Supreme Court enumerated several non-exclusive factors that courts may consider in evaluating the reliability of expert testimony.³⁰ "These factors are (1) whether the expert's theory can or has been tested, (2) whether the theory has been subject to peer review and publication, (3) the known or potential rate of error of a technique or theory when applied, (4) the existence and maintenance of standards and controls, and (5) the degree to which the technique or theory has been generally accepted in the scientific community."³¹

The Supreme Court has cautioned the reliability analysis must remain flexible: the Daubert factors "may or may not be pertinent in assessing reliability, depending on the nature of the issue, the expert's particular expertise, and the subject of his testimony."³² Thus, "not every Daubert factor will be applicable in every situation . . . and a court hasdiscretion to consider other factors it deems relevant."³³ The district court is offered broad latitude in making expert testimony determinations.³⁴

As a general rule, questions relating to the bases and sources of an expert's opinion affect the weight of the evidence rather than its admissibility and should be left for the finder of fact.³⁵ "Unless wholly unreliable, the data on which the expert relies goes to the weight and not the admissibility of the expert opinion."³⁶ Thus, "[v]igorous cross-examination, presentation of contrary evidence, and careful instruction on the burden of proof are the traditional and appropriate means of attacking shaky but admissible evidence."³⁷ The Court is not concerned with whether the opinion is correct but whether the preponderance of the evidence establishes that the opinion is reliable.³⁸ "It is the role of the adversarial system, not the court, to highlight weak evidence."³⁹

LAW AND ANALYSIS

I. Rucoba's opinion that Plaintiff had time to slow down and did not need to swerve off the roadway is not admissible.

Rucoba found the likely cause of the crash was driver error on several accounts. Plaintiff seeks to exclude or limit Rucoba's expert testimony that Plaintiff's driver error is partially responsible for the accident because Plaintiff had sufficient time to safely slow his vehicle down, rather than swerving off the road. Plaintiff argues "the methods [Rucoba] used to construct his expert report are unreliable."⁴⁰ To be reliable, thetestimony must be scientifically valid based on the underlying reasoning and methodology. The Court must determine whether the methodology employed by Rucoba is sufficient to render his opinions relevant and reliable.⁴¹ Defendant, as the proponent of Rucoba's expert testimony, carries the burden of proving the testimony is admissible by a preponderance of the evidence.⁴²

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