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Gomes v. Mossberg Industries12/11/2000
II. The Expert Witness
The qualification and competency of an expert witness to proffer opinion evidence on a subject matter over which the witness professes to possess scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge as a result of experience, training or education, and which will assist the trier of fact to better understand or to determine a relevant fact in issue, is left to the sound discretion of the trial justice. Neri v. Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance Co., 719 A.2d 1150, 1151 (R.I. 1998). That discretion will not be disturbed absent a showing of an abuse thereof, and here we see no abuse.
Even assuming that Geisser should have been permitted to opine that the motorized drive shaft alleged to have caused Gomes's injury had been negligently designed and manufactured, that opinion evidence would have been of no assistance to Gomes because the defendant Mossberg had nothing to do with its design or manufacture, nor did Mossberg sell or deliver it to Hope Webbing. Simply put, Mossberg was the wrong defendant because it was not the tortfeasor. Gomes should have been totally aware of that clear fact from the trial depositions that his attorneys had taken of Louis R. Perrotta and Peter Heaney and which they later presented and read to the court and trial jury.
The plaintiff's appeal is denied and dismissed and the judgment appealed from is affirmed. The papers in this case are remanded to the Superior Court.
Justice Flanders did not attend oral arguments, but participated on the basis of the briefs.
SOURCE OF APPEAL: Superior Providence
JUDGE FROM OTHER COURT: Clifton, J.
JUSTICES: Weisberger, C.J., Lederberg, Bourcier, Goldberg, JJ. Concurring
Flanders, J. Did not attend oral argument but did participate on the basis of the briefs.
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