Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. v. Thompson

LAMBERT, Chief Justice,

dissenting.

In the case at bar, the expert whose testimony was excluded was Dr. O.J. Hahn. From the record, it appears that Dr. Hahn is at least sixty years of age and the holder of a B.S. degree in engineering physics, an M.S. in nuclear engineering, an M.A. in mechanical engineering, and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Princeton University. Since 1973 he has taught engineering at the University of Kentucky and since 1984 has been a professor of mechanical engineering at UK. Among the courses he has taught at UK are engineering safety and engineering experimentation. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers, American Society for Quality Control, American Nuclear Society, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Chemical Society, and Kentucky Health Physics Society. He has authored or co-authored many published articles in various areas of *584 engineering and is a member of several honorary societies for engineers. He has research specialization in safety of mechanical systems. He has testified as an expert witness on multi-piece rims in over one hundred cases in forty-nine states and has studied such rims for over twenty-six years. Despite the foregoing qualifications, the trial court found that “he is not an expert witness” and excluded his proffered testimony.

The only discernable basis for the majority opinion upholding the ruling of the trial court is trial court discretion: “KRE 702 gives the trial court the discretionary authority, reviewable for its abuse, to determine admissibility of expert testimony in light of the particular facts and circumstances of the particular case.” 1 In effect, the majority holds that there is no rule of law with respect to the admissibility of scientific evidence — that only the view of the trial judge matters. Manifestly, such an approach will lead to inconsistent, unpredictable and perhaps arbitrary decision-making that no appellate court will be empowered to correct.

The trial court and this Court’s majority have confused the concept of admissibility of evidence with the concept of weight and credibility of evidence. As shown by the quotation from the trial court in the majority opinion at page 582, the trial court was pre-occupied with industry practices and virtually disregarded the education, training and experience of the witness. The trial court appears to have confused its role as gatekeeper with the jury’s role in determining the weight evidence should have. In contrast, the view of the Court of Appeals was as follows: “The Court [in McKendall 2 ] explained that because testimony from such a witness would be helpful and relevant, he was qualified as an expert witness, and it would be for the jury to determine the weight to be accorded his testimony. Moreover, it is the role of cross-examination to discredit the expert’s testimony by raising points such as his failure to have tested or created the safety device he espoused.” 3

The Court of Appeals summarized Dr. Hahn’s avowal testimony as follows: “Dr. Hahn testified that when using a multi-piece locking system, like the FL-type lock, a bolting system like that used on B-52 bombers is safer than that used by Thompson in this case. He explained that since the system works on B-52 bombers, and all the key elements are exceeded in aircraft tires as compared to truck tires, it would obviously work with a truck tire.” 4 Any flaw in the foregoing analysis would have been revealed in cross-examination. Dr. Hahn’s testimony should have gone to the jury where a proper assessment of weight would have been made.

Upon reading the majority opinion, one is left to ponder an extraordinary incongruity. Recently, this Court has authorized the per se admission of expert scientific evidence relating to DNA identification on the view that the basic science was sufficiently reliable that Dau-bert hearings need not occur. 5 Less than twenty years ago, the use of human DNA for the purpose of identification was unknown, 6 but this Court is now entirely comfortable with its use to prove the identity of perpetrators of crime. In this case, however, we have declared our lack of confidence in basic mechanical engineering, a discipline which has been known and widely accepted for a century or more. The admissibility issue in this case did not concern DNA identification, brain surgery or rocket science. It con *585 cerned a wheel. Despite this, however, we have held that a Ph.D. mechanical engineering professor with many years of teaching and other professional experience may be prevented from testifying because the trial judge did not have confidence in his methodology and did not believe that his testimony satisfied the Daubert test.

GRAVES, J., joins this dissenting opinion.

. Majority opinion at page 583.

. McKendall v. Crown Control Corp., 122 F.3d 803, 807 (9th Cir.1997).

. Court of Appeals opinion page 6.

. Court of Appeals opinion page 7.

. Fugate v. Commonwealth, Ky., 993 S.W.2d 931, 937 (1999).

. Harris v. Commonwealth, Ky., 846 S.W.2d 678, 680 (1992).