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Brady v. Ralph M. Parsons Co.5/2/1990
onclusion are incorrect. First of all, in Maryland, the violation of a statute does not constitute negligence per se. Rather, the breach of a statutory duty may be considered evidence of negligence. Pahanish v. Western Trails, Inc., 69 Md. App. 342, 363, 517 A.2d 1122 (1986).
Secondly, although there is no debatable issue as to the existence of negligence, in negligence per se the defenses of contributory negligence and assumption of risk are ordinarily still available to the defendant. Prosser & Keeton, supra at § 36. Hence, appellants are incorrect in their assertion that finding of negligence per se bars the defendant from using these defenses. Accordingly, for the aforementioned reasons, we find appellants' allegations and conclusions thereof of a nondelegable duty and negligence per se inapposite to the instant case.
EXPERT TESTIMONY
Appellants also complain that the trial court erred in not permitting Carl Silver, Ph.D., an expert in the field of human engineering, to testify on the issue of whether the decedent appreciated the risks associated with his job and the ability of Parsons to avoid those risks. Appellants claim that Silver's testimony would have been relevant regarding the decedent's lack of contributory negligence and assumption of risk.
Appellants' counsel proffered Dr. Silver as an expert in human engineering and stated:
"The -- this expert will testify as to the impact human engineering has on designing safety programs in the necessity of taking into consideration human factors in deciding safety and the fact that safety must be preplanned. That because of these human factors, he will point out further that it's necessary, as he partially mentioned in his qualifications, that human fallibility being what it is, you do not allow -- you do not rely upon workers to understand a slogan to prevent injuries, but you plan the jobs and what have you so that the job cannot only be done in a safe way, or if the job cannot be done in a safe way, so that you can prevent injury from occurring if that injury foreseeably could occur. These are all in the area of -- in the areas of human engineering.
Earlier, Dr. Silver explained that
"human engineering is a field which draws upon the knowledge of human behavior that is involved in experimental psychology and physiology and other fields like that and combines it with the techniques of engineering in order to insure the tasks that people are performing and the equipment that people are using will allow safe and effective performance.
"It involves designing ways to get information to people, for example, through warning signs or warning lights or bells, or anything of that nature. It includes the design of tools and controls and working spaces with always as the two goals to optimize human efficiency and to maintain human safety."
At the conclusion of the voir dire, the trial judge ruled that the proffered testimony was irrelevant, stating:
"This man is a theoretician who is talking in the abstract and the standard to be applied to the litigants in this case as ordinary reasonable people."
The standard for the admissibility of expert testimony is whether the finder of fact can receive appreciable help from
an expert on the subject matter. McLain, Maryland Evidence § 702.1 (1987). Here, Dr. Silver was described as an expert in human factors and the proffered testimony was to assist the jury in making inferences regarding whether the decedent appreciated the risks associated with his job. His opinion would have been merely an inference based on facts
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