Sixth Circuit Reverses District Court’s Exclusion Of Plaintiff’s Expert Witness Testimony That Contradicted Plaintiff’s Own Testimony In Gun Case

A plaintiff initiated a product liability suit after he was seriously injured when a revolver made by the defendant gun manufacturer discharged improperly.  The plaintiff offered only one expert witness, who concluded that the gun’s cylinder was not closed and locked when fired as a result of manufacturing and design defects.  The expert specifically opined that when the plaintiff attempted to shoot his gun, the cylinder failed to fully close and that because the plaintiff was able to push on the gun’s thumb latch and therefore was able to cock and fire the gun despite the cylinder not being fully closed.  However, the plaintiff had testified at his deposition that he had no problem closing the cylinder, that it was only upon the third consecutive shot that the gun misfired, and the plaintiff’s demonstrated “grip” showed that he did not touch the thumb latch.

The district court excluded the evidence because it found the inconsistencies between the expert opinion and the plaintiff’s own testimony meant that the expert’s opinion did not “fit” the facts of the case and so did not satisfy Rule 702’s relevancy requirement.

The Sixth Circuit reversed, finding the district court abused its discretion because, inter alia, “a party is not precluded from proving his case by any relevant evidence” even if the evidence is conflicting.  The court noted that the expert had the appropriate qualifications, used reliable scientific methods, and based his opinion on the physical evidence.  Moreover, the court emphasized that the plaintiff may have mistakenly thought he closed the chamber but was wrong.  The court recognized that exclusion would be warranted if no jury could reasonably conclude the plaintiff’s memory was faulty, but a jury should have been able to rely on the expert testimony to reject inconsistent parts of the plaintiff’s testimony.  “A tort plaintiff should be able to testify honestly to his memory of what happened and still have his lawyer argue that on the evidence as a whole it is more probable than not that the memory was faulty.”  Accordingly, the court concluded the “mismatch” between the plaintiff’s and the expert’s theories should not have precluded the expert’s opinions.