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Arrow International2/12/2003
cap.
To support its theory, Arrow presented the testimony of two nurses who said that, when Long's condition was discovered, they saw blood coming from the side tube. Arrow also called Carl Botterbusch, the vice-president and general manager of its Cardiac Assist Division, who testified that, in his opinion, Long bled to death out of the side tube. Another of Arrow's experts, Dr. Alfred Gervin, testified that it would have been possible for a patient to bleed to death out of the side tube in twenty minutes. To rebut this testimony, appellee called Dr. Brock Allen, who testified: "I do not think there's any way that [Long] could have ever bled to death through this tiny hole with this small amount of pressure pushing the blood in that direction because it would have clotted before he ever lost his entire blood volume and died from that." Arrow objected to Allen's testimony on the grounds that he had no expertise in fluid mechanics and his opinion had no reliable scientific basis, as required by Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993). The trial judge allowed Dr. Allen to testify, and for its first issue on appeal, Arrow contends that the admission of Allen's testimony was error.
The admission of rebuttal evidence is within the sound discretion of the trial court, and we will not reverse absent an abuse of discretion. Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. v. Foote, 341 Ark. 105, 14 S.W.3d 512 (2000). Further, if an opponent of expert testimony contends that the expert is not qualified, the opponent bears the burden of showing that the testimony should be stricken. See Collins v. Hinton, 327 Ark. 159, 937 S.W.2d 164 (1997). With these standards in mind, we address Arrow's first claim that Dr. Allen testified regarding a matter that was outside his area of expertise.
Arrow contends that Dr. Allen was not qualified to offer an opinion regarding blood flow through the side tube because he was not an expert in fluid mechanics. We disagree. While experts may not offer opinions that range too far outside their area of expertise, see, e.g., Brunson v. State, 349 Ark. 300, 79 S.W.3d 304 (2002), the opinion rendered by Dr. Allen did not require him to be an expert in any field other than the one in which he was unquestionably qualified, the field of medicine. Dr. Allen was an emergency room physician with approximately sixteen years of experience. He was familiar with the two-piece PSI and the diameters of both its tubes (2.8 mm on the sheath introducer and 1.6 mm on the smaller side tube). In his practice, he had used "triple-lumen" catheters with small diameters like that of the PSI's side tube. He explained to the jury that, based on his experience with the triple- lumens, which required the administration of a special solution to keep a patient's blood from clotting, Long's blood would have clotted before he bled to death through the side tube. He also told the jury about his consultation with another physician, Dr. Margaret Kuykendall, who also did not believe that Long could have bled such a large amount out of the small side tube opening. Finally, he testified that, in all his years of practice, he had never heard of a person bleeding to death through a tube like the side tube of the PSI.
Rule 702 of the Arkansas Rules on Evidence entitled "Testimony of Experts" reads:
If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise. (Emphasis added.)
The rule expressly recognizes that an expert's testimony may
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