 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Belew v. Nelson12/16/2005
es before their impact. While she does not challenge Trooper Jones's credentials as an expert witness, she sets forth a number of separate arguments challenging the permissibility of an expert to testify to the position of automobiles before an accident and challenging the underlying basis of Trooper Jones's opinion that the McKelveys' automobile was in Nelson's lane of travel before the accident. As detailed below, we must reject each of Belew's challenges to Trooper Jones's testimony.
Rule 702, Ala. R. Evid., governs the admissibility of expert testimony. That rule provides:
"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."
Our Supreme Court has explained the standard by which we review challenges to a trial court's having allowed a witness to offer expert testimony: "'A determination of whether a witness qualifies as an expert rests largely in the discretion of the trial judge, and that determination will be reversed only if found to be palpably wrong.'" Weeks v. Danford, 608 So. 2d 387, 388 (Ala. 1992) (quoting Macon County Comm'n v. Sanders, 555 So. 2d 1054, 1058 (Ala. 1990)). The Court has defined an "expert" as "'"anyone whose opportunity or means of knowledge in a specialized art or science is better than that of the average juror or witness," such that the expert's testimony will aid the jury.'" Weeks, 608 So. 2d at 388 (quoting Sanders, 555 So. 2d at 1058).
Belew argues that the court should not have permitted Trooper Jones to testify regarding the relative positions of the vehicles involved in the accident before impact. She bases this contention on the Supreme Court's decision in White v. State, 294 Ala. 265, 271, 314 So. 2d 857, 862 (1975), in which the Court held that "an expert is not allowed to testify as to the relative positions of the parties at the time a shot is fired." The rule in White is not applicable to the present case, however, and Belew's reliance on White is misplaced.
The rationale for the rule set forth in White was stated in Rigell v. State, 8 Ala. App. 46, 62 So. 977 (1913):
"'According to the overwhelming weight of authority, the opinions of medical experts are not admissible to show the position of an injured person at the time the wound was received, or the position of the person who inflicted it, because, as has been said, surgeons are not presumed to be experts in the matter of giving or receiving wounds, and the jury equally capable of drawing proper inferences from the facts proved.'"
Rigell, 8 Ala. App. at 55, 62 So. at 980 (quoting Vol. 5, p. 588, of the Encyclopedia of Evidence). Unlike in the case of a shooting, where laypersons are just as qualified as medical or other experts to review the evidence of bullet trajectory in order to determine the position of the parties before the shooting, we find that the expert testimony of Trooper Jones with regard to determining the position of the vehicles before the accident was properly admitted.
As the facts in this case demonstrate, there are important distinctions between the types of marks that vehicles leave on the road (see note 2, supra) of which the average layperson would not be aware. In addition, Trooper Jones had received training as to how to determine the angle of vehicles in an accident at the time of a collision, allowing for a reasonable determination of their positions before the accident. We cannot find that the ability demonstrated by Trooper Jones in this case
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 Alabama Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|