The following blog entry is written to illustrate a common motion filed during civil litigation. Reviewing this kind of filing should help potential plaintiffs and clients better understand how parties in personal injury cases present such issues to the court.
(Please also note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this car accident lawsuit and its proceedings.)
An expert must base his opinion either on facts personally observed or on hypotheses that find support in the evidence; Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v G. W. Thomas Drayage & Rigging Co. (1968) 69 Cal 2d 33, 69 Cal Rptr 561, 442 P2d 641, and not on irrelevant, conjectural, or speculative data, Roscoe Moss Co. v. Jenkins (1942) 55 Cal. App.2d 369, 130 P.2d 477; Hyatt v Sierra Boat Co. (1978) 79 Cal App 3d 325, 145 Cal Rptr 47.
Thus, in personal injury actions against lawn mower and tire manufacturers experts were not permitted to testify about articles and statistical surveys dealing with other mowers and tire failures, where the proponent of the evidence failed to show any similarity between the other tire failures and mower accidents, none of the material the experts consulted constituted the type of professional technical literature that reasonably may be relied on by an expert in forming an opinion, and the opinions were based on mere speculation, Luque v McLean (1972) 8 Cal 3d 136, 104 Cal Rptr 443, 501 P2d 1163; Stephen v. Ford Motor Co. (2005) 134 Cal App 4th 1363, 37 Cal Rptr 3d 9.
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.
Similarly, a trial court properly struck the testimony of a damages expert in a legal malpractice case, based upon an underlying invalidation of two of the plaintiffs patents, because there was no basis for the expert’s assumption that the plaintiff had a product which could penetrate the market, and she had no expertise in the relevant industries or technology, Maatuk v. Guttman (2009) 173 Cal App 4th 1191, 93 Cal Rptr 3d 381. (See Part 5 of 7.)
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.