June 5, 2018
Recently, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the April 4, 2017 judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Vanessa L. Bryant, J.) after finding the arguments raised on appeal to be without merit. Karavitis v. Makita U.S.A, Inc., 218 U.S. App. LEXIS 2328. (2d Cir. 2018).Plaintiff, Eustathios Karavitis, appealed from the District Court’s decision granting Defendant, Makita U.S.A, Inc.’s, motion to exclude expert testimony and motion for summary judgment. Karavitis purchased a portable Makita circular saw and used it without any problem “over 50” times and “quite possibly” over 100 times for various home improvement projects over at least a fifteen-year period. In 2013, while cutting a piece of wood with the Matika saw, Karavitis injured his thumb, causing tendon and nerve damage. Karavitis claimed that the saw was defectively designed and lacked adequate warnings. Karavatis relied on the opinion of Lewis Barbe, a safety engineer. Barbe has a bachelor’s degree in fire protection and safety engineering and offered no explanation of how that degree qualified him to offer expert testimony regarding Matika circular saw.
The adequacy of an expert’s qualifications “can only be determined by comparing the area in which the witness has superior knowledge, skill, experience, or education” with the actual “subject matter of the witness’s testimony.” United States v. Diallo, 40 F.3d 32, 34 (2d Cir. 1994). The Circuit Court reviewed the district court’s determination to exclude expert testimony under Daubert for abuse of discretion. The Court explained that the expert witness’s testimony is admissible only if: (1) “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;” (2) “the testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data;” (3) “the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods;” and (4) “the expert has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of the case.” Fed. R. Evid. 702, cited in Karavitis v. Makita U.S.A., Inc., 243 F. Supp. 3d 235, 240-241, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39830, *7-8. What constitutes a reasonable measure of reliability in a particular case falls within trial judge’s broad discretion.
The Circuit Court concluded that the District Court was within its broad discretion to find that Barbe did not reliably substantiate his central claim that the omission of a riving knife rendered the circular saw at issue unreasonably dangerous. Barbe did not provide any studies on riving knives, nor did he conduct any design testing with a riving knife. The Circuit Court further noted that in several other cases Mr. Barbe’s general background in safety engineering did not qualify him as an expert on the design of a particular product.
Trial courts have broad discretion to allow or exclude expert testimony. Under the Daubert standard, without an expert having specialized knowledge and detailing generally accepted tests and analyses used to determine the safety of a given product and then presenting the results of those tests, an expert’s opinions and conclusions will not be useful to the fact finder and the expert’s testimony will likely be excluded. Defense counsel should carefully vet any prospective experts to ensure his/her background and qualifications align themselves with the subject matter of the lawsuit.