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Barrett v. ERA Avaition2/25/2000
[No. 5242 - February 25, 2000]
Appeal from the Superior Court of the State of Alaska, Third Judicial District, Anchorage, Dan A. Hensley, Judge.
MATTHEWS, Chief Justice.
CARPENETI, Justice, with whom BRYNER, Justice, joins, concurring.
I. INTRODUCTION
Michael "Mickey" Barrett sued Era Aviation, Inc., claiming that he suffered permanent damage to his inner ear as a passenger on an Era flight from Era's negligent maintenance of the in-flight pressuriza-tion system. The superior court excluded part of the testimony of Barrett's expert witness, prohibiting him from testifying about the standard of care for aircraft maintenance or about whether Era had negligently maintained the aircraft at issue. The court also sent the jury instructions that contained potentially conflicting definitions of negligence. Barrett appeals both the exclusion of his expert's testimony and the superior court's jury instructions. Because we find that the conflicting jury instructions constitute reversible error, we reverse and remand the case for a new trial.
II. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS
On December 25, 1990, Mickey Barrett flew as a passenger on an Era Aviation flight from Anchorage to Barrow. On September 9, 1992, Barrett filed a personal injury suit against Era, claiming that he had suffered severe and permanent damage to his inner ear as a result of pressurization problems caused by negligent maintenance on the flight.
Barrett hired John Spencer, a pilot familiar with the type of aircraft at issue, to testify as an expert witness on the subject of aircraft pressurization. Spencer testified that he had logged over 8,000 hours of flight time as a captain and over 4,000 hours of flight time as a co-pilot in similar aircraft. Spencer also testified that he was qualified as a check airman, ground school instructor, flight school instructor, and simulator instructor for this type of aircraft.
Prior to trial, Era filed a motion in limine seeking, inter alia, to exclude those portions of Spencer's testimony beyond his area of expertise. Era claimed Spencer lacked sufficient expertise to testify regarding the standard of care applicable to Era and whether or not Era breached this standard. The trial court granted Era's motion in part, ruling that Spencer could testify generally about aircraft pressurization problems, but could not testify about the applicable standard of care or about whether Era had been negligent.
At the close of the trial, the jury received instructions and retired to deliberate. After deliberating only a short while, the jury submitted a note, indicating its confusion as to how to reconcile Jury Instruction No. 14 (a general negligence instruction) and Instruction No. 16 (a common carrier negligence instruction). The judge consulted with counsel for both sides. Era's attorney requested that the judge either tell the jury he could give them no advice, or tell them to consider all of the instructions as a whole. Barrett's attorney requested that the judge instruct the jury to emphasize the common carrier instruction. The judge eventually directed the jury to refer to Instruction No. 34, which required jury members to read all of the instructions as a whole.
The jury again deliberated without requesting further clarification. It ultimately returned a verdict in favor of the defendant, Era Aviation.
III. STANDARD OF REVIEW
We review a trial court's exclusion of expert testimony for abuse of discretion. Jury instructions involve questions of law to which we apply our independent judgment. A jury instruction containing an erroneous statement of la
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