ROBERT W. GETTLEMAN, District Judge.
Plaintiff Steven Noffsinger filed a three-count amended complaint alleging strict liability and negligence claims (along with an alternate negligence claim under a res ipsa loquitor theory, which this court dismissed in its order dated May 26, 2010) against defendants The Valspar Corporation and its subsidiary, Engineered Polymer Solutions, Inc. Defendants have filed the instant motion under Fed. R. Evid. 104(a) to exclude the testimony of four of plaintiff's expert witnesses. Defendants contend that without this testimony, plaintiff cannot establish the elements of his claims, and therefore have also moved for summary judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 56. Along with his response to that motion, plaintiff moved to strike Exhibit I of defendants' motion to exclude and for summary judgment (actually an exhibit to defendants' Local Rule 56.1 statement of facts). A day after those filings, plaintiff filed a motion to supplement his response in opposition to defendants' motion with an after-acquired medical record. In addition, plaintiff has filed a motion to reconsider the court's April 20, 2011, scheduling order and to strike two opinions of Joel Cohen, an expert witness offered by defendants. Also pending is plaintiff's objections to Magistrate Judge Brown's June 17, 2011, memorandum opinion and order. For the following reasons, the court denies defendants' motion to exclude and for summary judgment, denies as moot plaintiff's motion to strike Exhibit I, denies as moot plaintiff's motion to supplement, and denies plaintiff's motion to strike Mr. Cohen's opinions two and three. Plaintiff's objections to Magistrate Judge Brown's June 17, 2011, order are also denied.
Unless otherwise specified, the following facts are undisputed. In February 2007, Valspar hired Midwest Coast Transport, Inc., for which plaintiff worked as a commercial truck driver, to deliver 72 55-gallon drums of Dynamprime paint, a solvent-based coating designed for use on metal coils, from Valspar's plant in Kankakee, Illinois, to Santa Fe Springs, California. On his way to Santa Fe Springs, plaintiff and his dog, Boomer, stopped to spend the night at a truck stop. Plaintiff awoke early in the morning of February 17, 2007, and discovered that Dynaprime was leaking from the front and rear of the trailer, and had pooled near the drive tires outside the cab of the truck. Plaintiff alleges that he developed permanent respiratory injuries—specifically, Reactive Airways Dysfunction Syndrome, or RADS—as a result of exposure to the paint fumes. On March 30, 2007, Boomer died.
RADS was first named and described in an academic article, based on a study of 500 asthma patients, that was published in 1985.
At trial, plaintiff intends to present the testimony of five expert witnesses.
Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and
The court serves as a "gatekeeper" to ensure that the expert's testimony "is sufficiently reliable to qualify for admission."
The Supreme Court has offered the following non-exclusive factors to aid courts in determining whether a particular expert opinion is grounded in a reliable scientific methodology: (1) whether the proffered theory can be and has been tested; (2) whether the theory has been subjected to peer review and publication; (3) whether the theory has a known or potential rate of error; and (4) whether the relevant scientific community has accepted the theory.
Defendants have moved to exclude the testimony of four of plaintiffs' expert witnesses. For the following reasons, this motion is denied in its entirety.
Drs. Milby and Tita are plaintiff's proffered medical causation experts. Dr. Milby is an expert on RADS and causation who would testify that plaintiff has RADS caused by exposure to Dynaprime fumes on February 17, 2007. Dr. Tita, a treating pulmonologist for plaintiff, would also testify that plaintiff suffers from RADS caused by exposure to Dynaprime fumes on February 17, 2007.
Defendants contend that the methodology used by these two experts is not scientifically reliable because "the Seventh Circuit's standard for proving medical causation in chemical exposure cases" requires experts to do two things that these experts did not: (1) specify a particular chemical in the substance to which the patient was exposed that caused RADS; and (2) identify the level of that chemical to which the patient was exposed. (In all, according to defendants, this "standard" requires "that a toxicologist offering causation testimony must know, at a minimum, (1) the substance alleged to have caused the injury, (2) the amount of the substance to which Plaintiff was exposed, (3) the duration of the exposure, and (4) whether the dose Plaintiff received was sufficient to cause injury.") Because, however, this is not the standard, and because the court concludes that the experts' testimony is based on scientifically reliable methodology, Rule 702 and
As an initial matter, there is no support for defendants' proclaimed "Seventh Circuit standard for proving medical causation in chemical exposure cases." The lone Seventh Circuit case they cite does not support the proposition for which they cite it.
Further,
The court has located only one case,
Thus, an expert's failure to answer precisely each of the four questions posed by the
First, defendants insist that all toxicologists offering medical causation testimony must know the substance alleged to have caused the injury, with no exceptions for diseases that, like RADS, are not defined as having been caused by a specific chemical. But because the medical literature defines RADS as being caused by unspecified irritants, it would be unnecessary—and potentially impossible—for a medical expert to isolate a chemical within the substance to which a RADS patient was exposed.
Second, defendants claim that because the diagnostic criteria for RADS includes "a finding of a high intensity exposure to a respiratory irritant," and Drs. Milby and Tita cannot point to a precise amount of plaintiff's exposure to Dynaprime, their testimony is not scientifically reliable. Plaintiff correctly disputes the first premise of that claim. The medical literature, which plaintiff does not dispute (and in fact cites), states that "[e]xposure to an irritant vapor, gas, fumes, or smoke in very high concentrations" is one of the diagnostic criteria for RADS. Stuart M. Brooks and James D. McCluskey,
More generally, defendants question the legitimacy of the differential etiology methodology, which Drs. Milby and Tita used to arrive at plaintiff's RADS diagnosis. In a differential etiology analysis, "the doctor rules in all the potential causes of a patient's ailment and then by systematically ruling out causes that would not apply to the patient, the physician arrives at what is the likely cause of the ailment."
For these reasons, defendants' motion to exclude the testimony of Drs. Milby and Tita is denied.
Plaintiff has designated Dr. Sheldon Mostovoy as an expert witness to offer three related opinions regarding the faulty drum: (1) the drum was defective because it was manufactured from flawed steel; (2) the crack in the drum was obvious when Valspar received it from its drum supplier; and (3) the crack began on the bottom of the drum, and was visible to anyone who looked at the bottom of the drum before it was filled with Dynaprime. Defendants claim that these opinions are inadmissible because Dr. Mostovoy's testimony does not meet Rule 702's "fit" requirement, which demands a link between the facts or data the expert has used and the conclusion the expert's testimony intends to support. Fed. R. Evid. 702;
In response to defendants' critiques—principally attacking Dr. Mustovoy's assumptions about the drum's size and shape
Defendants' motion to exclude Dr. Mostovoy's testimony is denied.
Dr. Brown, an expert in the paint and coating industry, would offer three opinions: (1) that defendants did not employ reasonable care to meet industry standards in receiving, handling, inspecting, and filling the drums of Dynaprime; (2) that if defendants had exercised reasonable care in inspecting drums, the crack would have been discovered and the accident avoided; and (3) Dynaprime vapors were released when the leak occurred and, due to their volatility, the vapors would have been present in or near the truck cab and storage area.
Defendants challenge the factual basis for all three opinions, arguing that because Dr. Brown lacks knowledge of the drum supplier's inspection procedures, he has no basis for determining that defendants' practices failed to conform to industry standards or that they could have done more to prevent the leak. But Dr. Brown's opinions do not depend on what inspection procedures the drum supplier used. Rather, his opinions are premised on his view that defendants had an independent obligation to inspect drums, based in part on the paint industry's standards—with which Dr. Brown testified he was familiar.
Defendants further contend that Dr. Brown's first opinion should be excluded as an impermissible legal conclusion, citing
Defendants also challenge the methodology Dr. Brown used to arrive at his third opinion—that "vapors would be present in or near the truck storage area and the truck cab due to their volatility." Specifically, defendants contend that Dr. Brown's methodology was insufficient to allow him to determine a number of factors—"the quantity of potential fumes or vapors released from the leaked Dynaprime, the rate at which the vapors would have been released, and the direction the vapors would have traveled"—without which it would be impossible to determine that "any vapors actually ever entered the cab of the truck." This is illogical. Dr. Brown need not have made precise determinations of these factors to determine that vapors were present in some unspecified amount. After plaintiff pointed this out in his response, defendants failed to reply on this point, probably because they had no valid counterargument.
Defendants' motion to exclude Dr. Brown's testimony is denied.
Defendants' sole basis for requesting summary judgment is their contention that plaintiff's expert testimony is inadmissible. Because, for the reasons discussed above, the court is overruling defendants' objections to plaintiff's expert testimony, defendants' motion for summary judgment is denied.
Along with his response to the motion to exclude and for summary judgment, plaintiff filed a "Motion to Strike Exhibit I to Defendants' Motion to Exclude Experts and for Summary Judgment." (In fact, the exhibit to which plaintiff refers—the declaration of Sal Corrao of the Barstow Fire Protection District—was attached to defendants' L.R. 56.1 statement of facts in support of their motion to exclude and for summary judgment.) In moving to strike Corrao's declaration, plaintiff noted: "Plaintiff's Response is due September 12, 2011. The purpose of this Motion is to strike a submission by Defendants in support of that Motion in advance of consideration of the merits, so that Plaintiff's Response may be most effective and streamlined." It is doubtful, however, that devoting twenty-plus pages to briefing this issue—and the ancillary issue of whether this was properly raised as a separate motion, to which the parties devote substantial ink—has accomplished much in the way of streamlining the proceedings. Moreover, it is unclear why plaintiff thought that a ruling on the issue would help him to focus his response to defendants' motion to exclude and for summary judgment, because plaintiff filed that response at the same time as this motion. Plaintiff's motion to strike the declaration of Sal Corrao is therefore denied as moot.
A day after filing his response to defendants' motion to exclude and for summary judgment, plaintiff received the report from his July 27, 2011, visit to Dr. Pacheco. Plaintiff's response included reports of his medical treatment from Dr. Pacheco, but stated that the July 27 report was missing because it was not yet available. When it became available the next day, plaintiff sought to supplement his response by adding this report. Defendants opposed the motion, arguing that because Magistrate Judge Brown's June 17, 2011, order had denied plaintiff's motion to supplement his disclosure of Dr. Milby with Dr. Pacheco's reports, the court "should not consider any of Dr. Pacheco's records in ruling on [defendants'] Motion to Exclude or its Motion for Summary Judgment." Because the court has not, and need not, consider Dr. Pacheco's reports to rule on those motions, plaintiff's motion to supplement is denied as moot.
Defendants disclosed Joel Cohen, an industrial hygienist, as an expert to provide opinions regarding plaintiff's exposure to Dynaprime fumes. He offers three opinions: (1) because of the limited information in this case, "it is not possible to conduct a quantitative exposure assessment," so "[i]t would be speculative to offer a quantitative estimate of exposure"; (2) plaintiff's exposure to Dynaprime fumes "would more likely than not have been well below the applicable airborne exposure limits established by NIOSH [the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health], ACGIH [the American Conference of Industrial Hygenists] and OSHA [the Occupational Safety and Health Administration]"; and (3) if plaintiff was exposed to irritants in Dynaprime fumes, the concentration of the exposure would have been extremely low.
Plaintiff argues that Mr. Cohen, as a non-physician, cannot "override" his experts' medical determination that he was exposed to sufficient Dynaprime fumes to cause RADS, thus rendering Mr. Cohen's opinions "irrelevant and unhelpful to the jury." Plaintiff also argues that Mr. Cohen's conclusions are inadmissible "because they are undone by his own admissions that attempting to quantify [plaintiff's] exposure would be speculative"; that is, Mr. Cohen cannot both state that it is impossible to determine the quantity of vapors to which plaintiff was exposed (Opinion 1) and opine that the exposure was below a particular standard (Opinions 2 and 3).
In April 2011, plaintiff filed a motion to amend the briefing schedule for defendants' summary judgment motion to allow plaintiff to file a
Insofar as this motion is limited to the court's consideration of Mr. Cohen's opinions in evaluating defendants' motion to exclude and for summary judgment, it is moot. Plaintiff also argues, however, that Mr. Cohen's second and third opinions should be "given no consideration .. . in any other aspect of this case whatsoever." But neither of plaintiff's reasons for excluding Mr. Cohen's opinions is meritorious.
Plaintiff's first argument—that an industrial hygienist cannot testify on medical causation—misses the mark. Plaintiff's underlying theory is that because diagnosing RADS does not require quantitative proof of exposure, an industrial hygienist's testimony on amount of exposure could not possibly be helpful the jury. It is true that, in the course of denying defendants' motion to strike plaintiff's expert testimony, the court has rejected defendants' unsupported contention that plaintiff must offer evidence of how much Dyanprime he was exposed to. But the fact that plaintiff
Moreover, plaintiff's second argument is illogical. Mr. Cohen's second and third opinions do not contradict the first. The first opinion expresses a view on his inability to determine a quantitative amount of exposure, while the second and third opinions express the view that a qualitative opinion (whether the exposure was within specified levels) can be determined. As defendants point out, plaintiff's medical causation experts have drawn analogous conclusions, opining that although plaintiff's exposure cannot be quantified, they are able to diagnose him with RADS and conclude that he was exposed to a high level of Dynaprime vapors.
Therefore, plaintiff's motion to exclude Mr. Cohen's second and third opinions is denied.
Plaintiff has filed objections to Magistrate Judge Brown's memorandum opinion and order dated June 17, 2011, denying plaintiff's motion to supplement Dr. Milby's expert disclosure under Rule 26(e). Plaintiff argues that "because the addition of after-arising medical testing to a medical expert's report is commonplace and uncontroversial," "Judge Brown erred in denying [his] motion." But Magistrate Judge Brown's well-reasoned opinion—which this court may alter only if it is "clearly erroneous or contrary to law"—explains that this is not a case of supplementing a medical expert's report with new testing. Fed. R. Civ. P. 72. Rather, plaintiff has attempted to supplement Dr. Milby's disclosures with tests he did not administer and upon which his expert report did not rely. As defendants point out, Dr. Milby's report did not include even those reports on which he did rely, so it is clear that inclusion of such reports is necessary. Because plaintiff has acknowledged that "arguably, Dr. Pacheco's test results do not constitute `supplementation' because they do not alter Dr. Milby's disclosure and have been previously disclosed to Defendants," Magistrate Judge Brown's agreement with that position is not clearly erroneous or contrary to law. Plaintiff's objections are overruled.
For the foregoing reasons, the court denies defendants' motion to exclude plaintiff's experts and for summary judgment [Dkt. 177], denies as moot plaintiff's motion to strike Exhibit I [Dkt. 193], denies as moot plaintiff's motion to supplement his response in opposition to defendants' motion to exclude [Dkt. 195], and denies plaintiff's motion to strike Mr. Cohen's opinions two and three [Dkt. 208]. Plaintiff's objections to Magistrate Judge Brown's June 17, 2011, order [Dkt. 179] are denied.