Admitting Expert Opinion Without Foundation Abusive: Virginia S.C.

Expert witness opinions must have an adequate foundation to support their conclusions if they are to be admissible, the Virginia Supreme Court has ruled, reversing a circuit court judgment.

In the case of Holiday Motor Corp, Mazda Motor Corporation and Mazda Motor of America v. Walters, Va.  Sup. Ct., Sept. 8, 2016, Shannon Walters claimed negligence and breach of implied warranty after she crashed her 1995 Mazda Miata convertible due to an object falling from a pickup in front of her while traveling on a Virginia highway.¹ At the time of the crash, Walters had the soft top up, but during the crash, the Miata rolled over and the top disconnected from the windshield, with the car landing on its top. Walters fractured her neck, sustaining a serious cervical spine injury.

Walters argued that the design of the soft top's latching system was defective because the latches connecting the windshield header to the top were not designed to stay latched in a foreseeable rollover crash.

The defendants ("Mazda") argued that they had no duty to design or supply a soft top that provided protection from a rollover.

To support her claim, Walters engaged James Mundo, an automotive engineer qualified as an expert witness in crash management. Mundo testified that the latching mechanism was defectively designed because automotive engineers use a "right-hand rule" in their design of latching components that takes into account stresses in the cardinal directions: vertical, front to back and across the car. Mundo found that the Miata latches were not locked in the vertical direction, even though it had been "state of the art" in the automotive industry for more than 20 years. As an example he demonstrated the design of a Ford latch.

At trial, Mazda objected numerous times to Mundo's testimony, contending that it was simply a contention that latches should not come undone in foreseeable rollover crashes.

The circuit court took Mazda's objections under advisement, and did question Mundo's opinion that the latch design was defective. The circuit court noted that Mundo did not even know if the Ford latch would hold under rollover crashes.

Mazda noted that there was no evidence that any car manufacturer designed soft tops or latches to provide rollover protection. Walters argued that it was a fundamental purpose of the latches to keep any part of the structure from intruding into the occupant compartment.

In the end, the circuit court found Mondo's testimony admissible, and the jury return a $20 million award to Walters.

The Virginia Supreme Court did not find Mondo's testimony admissible. Mondo's opinion that the soft top's latching system was defectively designed was inadmissible as it did not have adequate factual foundation, the Court found.

That opinion was premised on the faulty assumptions: one that the latches would not have disconnected if they had been designed differently (but he offered no alternative design nor industry standard to support that assumption), and two that the front end of the roof structure would not have collapsed if the latches had remained connected (but he offered no calculation of the weight bearing capacity of any part of the Miata, or any calculation of the forces and vibrations involved in the crash to support the assumption). Mondo's opinion that "the crash spoke for itself" was not a sufficient foundation for his opinion.

As Mundo's opinion lacked an adequate foundation, the Supreme Court found that the circuit court had abused its discretion in admitting it.

Since Mundo's opinion was the only support for Walters' claims, the Supreme Court reversed the circuit court judgment and entered final judgment for Mazda.