Eighth Circuit Upholds Exclusion Of Engineer’s Testimony On Ultimate Causation In Derailment Cases
Following train derailments in 2007 and 2010, a railroad brought suit against a services company alleging that the services company negligently reconditioned certain railcar axles, which caused the axles to fail and the resulting derailments. At trial, the jury found in favor of the services company and the railroad appealed. Before the trial started, the district court had granted part of a motion in limine to exclude one opinion of the railroad’s expert, specifically the ultimate opinion that the service company’s negligence caused the derailments. Last week, the Eighth Circuit affirmed the judgment and concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding part of the railroad expert’s opinion.
Federal law prohibits railroads from placing or continuing in service any railcar axles that have certain defects, including pitting and cracks. 49 C.F.R. 215.105. Approximately one year before each of the train derailments at issue, this particular services company reconditioned the axles on the trains. The railroad’s expert sought to testify that the services company failed to properly remove corrosion pits from the fillet area of the axles during its reconditioning work, and that, “The fact that the failures occurred so soon after the axle/bearing being reconditioned by [the services company] indicates that there would have been conditions present on the axles (pitting, cracking, etc.) to reveal the axles should not have been returned to service.” The district court concluded that the expert was allowed to testify that certain corrosion pits and fatigue cracks in the axle were present when the services company refurbished them, that the services company failed to remove them, and that corrosion pitting and fatigue cracks in the fillet area can cause fractures in the journal that lead the axle to fail. The expert, however, could not offer his ultimate opinion that the pits and/or fatigue cracks refurbished by the services company actually caused the axle failures here, or that they more likely than not caused the failures.
In concluding that the district court did not abuse its discretion, the Eighth Circuit reasoned that the expert could not say when the corrosion pits specifically formed on each axle and that the fatigue cracks on the axles could not be traced to specific corrosion pits. As a result, the district court fairly could have determined that there was too significant of an analytical gap between the data and the expert’s proffered ultimate conclusion.
