Early v. Morgan Fleet Services, Inc.

Facts

In the case of Early v. Morgan Fleet Services, Inc., the trial court excluded Plaintiff’s expert’s opinion testimony and granted Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s exclusion of Plaintiff’s expert’s testimony, remanded for further proceedings on Defendant’s summary judgment motion, and held that the expert’s opinion needed only to be to a reasonable degree of scientific probability, not absolute certainty.

Early arose out of the personal injuries that bus driver Armer Early sustained in trying to exit a bus that caught on fire. The day before the incident, Plaintiff was driving the bus and noticed a burning smell and smoke coming from the bus, so she took the bus to a maintenance center. The mechanic at the maintenance center found that the bus was low on antifreeze and added antifreeze since he found nothing else wrong.

Later that same night, Defendant Morgan Fleet Services, Inc. arrived to do its 20-day routine inspection of all buses. The worker who conducted the inspections for Defendant found nothing wrong with the bus that Plaintiff was driving. However, the worker did have a printed report that showed a power steering fluid leak and an oil leak, but that wasn’t enough for the bus to be taken out of service with a red tag. Instead, the bus was yellow-tagged.

The next cold morning, as Plaintiff was preparing to drive the bus, she checked the antifreeze level, finding that it was full. Plaintiff started the bus, turned on the heater, and allowed the bus to run for about 25 minutes while she waited in her own car for about 15 of those minutes. Plaintiff went back to the bus, sat in the driver seat, and began to smell the same odor from the day before and saw fire coming out from the hood of the bus. Plaintiff ran to the other side of the bus to escape from the emergency exit. When Plaintiff jumped down from the emergency exit, she injured her knee and back on her landing. The bus was destroyed in the fire.

Plaintiff filed suit against Defendant alleging Defendant failed to adequately inspect the bus as it was obligated to do under its contract with the County. The County hired Charles Keene to determine the cause of the fire. Keene was qualified as an expert in fire investigation and had extensive experience investigating bus fires.

Keene reviewed the maintenance records, interviewed Plaintiff and others, inspected the bus itself, and examined a similar model. Keene ruled out many things as being the cause of the fire but did find evidence that the cause of the fire was a coolant leak that ignited the turbocharger. The coolant leak was the only possible cause of the fire that Keene could not rule out. Keene concluded that the coolant leak was the “most probable,” or “most likely,” cause of the fire but also reported that he could not determine the “exact cause” with “absolute scientific certainty.” In his deposition, Keene testified that his opinion was “basically a scientific guess on this because it is not absolute” and explained all the reasons why the coolant leak theory was the only most-probable or most-likely explanation of the fire.

Based on Keene’s use of the word “scientific guess” and testimony that he couldn’t state his opinion with “scientific certainty,” Defendant moved to exclude the expert opinion as speculative and moved for summary judgment because Plaintiff could not establish negligence without Kenne’s testimony. The trial court excluded the expert because Keene could not determine the cause of the fire with “absolute scientific certainty” to establish causation, and then granted summary judgment. Plaintiff appealed.

Issues & Holdings

The issue in this case was whether the trial court erred in excluding Keene’s testimony since it could not be stated with absolute scientific certainty.

The Court of Appeals held that the trial court did err in excluding Kenne’s testimony because the standard of the admissibility of expert testimony is not whether it can be stated in terms of certainty.

Reasoning

O.C.G.A. § 24-7-702(b) provides that an expert witness may provide expert opinion if (1) the expert’s “scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence a determine a fact in issue; (2) the testimony is based on sufficient facts or data; (3) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods; and (4) the expert has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of the case.”

A court should exclude an expert’s testimony if it amounts to no more than a mere guess or speculation. Early citing to United States v. 0.161 Acres of Land, 837 F.2d 1036, 1040 (11th Cir. 1988). For a plaintiff to prove causation, the plaintiff must introduce evidence that has a reasonable basis for the conclusion that something was more likely than not caused by the conduct of the defendant. Denson Heating & Air Conditioning Co. v. Oglesby, 266 Ga. App. 147, 148 (2004).

The Court of Appeals observed that a causation opinion should not be excluded because of an expert’s inability to state the opinion to a reasonable degree of “scientific certainty.” “Certainty,” or a “reasonable degree of certainty,” is not the correct standard. The appropriate standard for assessing the admissibility of an expert’s opinion is not whether the expert’s opinion is speculative or conjectural “to some degree,” but whether it is wholly speculative and conjectural. Layfield v. Dept. of Transp., 280 Ga. 848, 850 (2006).

The Court of Appeals reasoned that Keene’s opinion did utilize an appropriate scientific methodology and that he provided a plausible, scientifically supportable explanation for the most probable cause of the fire. The fact he could not state his terms in absolute scientific certainty did not render it inadmissible because that is not the standard. See, e.g., Zwiren v. Thompson, 276 Ga. 498, 501, 503 (2003) (ruling that the proper standard for a medical expert is to a reasonable degree of medical probability, not medical certainty).

Furthermore, his testimony that his opinion was his best “scientific guess” was just an acknowledgment that he could not state the cause with absolute certainty. Because absolute certainty is not the standard, simply acknowledging that fact did not render the opinion inadmissible.

In short, Keene’s opinion that the coolant leak caused the fire was admissible because he formulated his opinions after examining the bus, he observed flame patterns and damage to the bus engine, there was evidence the bus had been leaking coolant, there was evidence Early smelled a burning odor both times the bus was running, and the coolant valves on two other busies showed similar signs of leakage.

Conclusion

Early reminds us that the fundamental question in analyzing the admissibility of expert opinions is whether the opinions have a reasonable scientific basis. When they do, an expert’s inability to state the opinion in terms of certainty will not render the opinion inadmissible. Magic language is not required, and some speculation and conjecture is permitted, as long as the opinion is not wholly based on speculation and conjecture.

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Citation: Early v. Morgan Fleet Services, Inc., No. A23A0148 (Ga. Ct. App. May 16, 2023)