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Lyons v. Walsh & Sons Trucking Co.7/31/2002
t as to the admissibility of certain expert testimony concerning Rector's role in the collision. In that assignment, plaintiffs argue that the trial court improperly admitted reports and testimony by several OSP experts expressing the opinion that Rector's "improper" U-turn was the "principal contributing factor" to the crash. Plaintiffs assert that those opinions should have been excluded under OEC 702 and OEC 704 as "unhelpful" to the jury because they simply told the jury how to rule on an ultimate issue of fact, viz., causation.
In denying plaintiffs' in limine motion, the trial court observed:
" t's a little hard to rule on this in limine, because I'm not sure the form in which the testimony is going to come in, but I think that not only the factual analysis of the physical aspects of the scene, speeds, point of impact, and so on would be helpful to the jury, but in fact the opinions as to what caused the crash. Now, obviously we know in the case of Sgt. Rector that nobody's going to suggest that he should be held responsible in this case, because he can't be, and I think such opinions in the form in which I'm anticipating them, as they've been laid out here would come in, would be helpful to the jury under 702 and are permissible under 704. For that reasons, I am denying--and I realize that plaintiffs' motion No. 5 does have two parts--the illegal U-turn part and the principal contributing factor component. I'll allow testimony for both of those."
We endorse the trial court's reasoning. Even assuming that expert opinion testimony as to Rector's "principal" role in causing the crash is properly considered opinion testimony as to the ultimate issue of whether Melillo's conduct was a substantial factor in the accident, that testimony was helpful to the jury. Specifically, the challenged opinions by qualified accident reconstruction experts, while bearing on whether Melillo's conduct was a substantial factor in causing the accident, also could have assisted the jury in understanding the dynamics of the accident, including Rector's and Melillo's actions leading up to and during the accident, as well as the speed and location of each vehicle. Moreover, opinion testimony as to Rector's role in causing the accident was uniquely probative of whether the accident was avoidable on the part of Melillo, which was vigorously disputed at trial. There was no error.
Affirmed.
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