Stradtman v. Republic Services, Inc. et al
Filing
129
MEMORANDUM OPINION re: 95 MOTION to Strike Defendants' Expert Lyman Johnson by Stephen M. Stradtman. (See Memorandum Opinion For Details). Signed by District Judge James C. Cacheris on 4/28/15. (nhall)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA
Alexandria Division
STEPHEN M. STRADTMAN,
Plaintiff,
v.
REPUBLIC SERVICES, INC.,
et al.,
Defendants.
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M E M O R A N D U M
1:14CV1289 (JCC/JFA)
O P I N I O N
This matter is before the Court on Plaintiff’s Motion
to Strike Defendants’ Expert Lyman Johnson.
[Dkt. 95.]
For the
following reasons, the Court will deny the motion.
I. Background
Plaintiff Stephen M. Stradtman (“Plaintiff”) claims
that Defendants Republic Services, Inc., Republic Services of
Virginia, LLC, and Ronald Krall (collectively “Defendants”)
tortuously interfered with contractual relations and business
expectancies regarding his former employment as the Chief
Executive Officer (“CEO”) of Otto Industries North America, Inc.
(“Otto”).
(Compl. [Dkt. 1-3] at ¶¶ 121-140.)
In general,
Plaintiff claims that Defendants caused his resignation from
Otto in retaliation for a discrimination lawsuit that
Plaintiff’s wife had filed against Defendants.
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(See generally
id.)
Discovery was completed on April 10, 2015.
Order [Dkt. 20].)
(Scheduling
The parties appeared for a Final Pretrial
Conference on April 16, 2015 and set the matter for a jury trial
commencing on July 6, 2015.
On March 11, 2015, Defendants disclosed the expert
report of Mr. Lyman Johnson (the “Report”), who opines and
intends to testify regarding Plaintiff’s corporate governance
responsibilities as the CEO of Otto.
In the Report, Mr. Johnson
concludes:
(1) Under standard corporate practice, the
Otto Board, not Stradtman as CEO, was
ultimately responsible for acting to direct
and oversee the business and affairs of
Otto, including how Otto would act in
relation to Republic, with whom it had a
contractual relationship.
(2) Upon assessing his conduct in context,
it is my opinion that Stradtman was not
required to resign as CEO of Otto in order
to fulfill his governance responsibilities
or comply with his fiduciary duties. He had
no fiduciary duty to resign as he did.
(Report [Dkt. 96-1] at 4.)
Plaintiff now moves to strike Mr.
Johnson as an expert witness in this matter.
(Pl.’s Mot. to
Strike [Dkt. 95]; Pl.’s Mem. in Supp. [Dkt. 96].)
In support of his motion, Plaintiff argues that Mr.
Johnson draws impermissible legal conclusions regarding
Plaintiff’s fiduciary duties that would not otherwise assist a
jury in its understanding of the case, and that Mr. Johnson’s
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expert testimony is based on incorrect information that would
otherwise mislead the jury.
(Pl.’s Mem. at 3-8; 8-12.)
Defendants oppose Plaintiff’s motion and argue Mr. Johnson’s
proposed testimony is proper.
(Defs.’ Opp’n [Dkt. 102].)
Fully
briefed and argued, this motion is ripe for disposition.
II. Legal Standard
Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
provides:
A witness who is qualified as an expert by
knowledge, skill, experience, training, or
education may testify in the form of an
opinion or otherwise if: (a) the expert’s
scientific, technical, or other specialized
knowledge will help the trier of fact to
understand the evidence or to determine a
fact in issue; (b) the testimony is based
upon sufficient facts or data; (c) the
testimony
is
the
product
of
reliable
principles and methods; and (d) the witness
has reliably applied the principles and
methods to the facts of the case.
Fed. R. Evid. 702.
Pursuant to their role as gatekeepers,
district court judges must act to ensure that expert testimony
is relevant and reliable.
Cooper v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., 259
F.3d 194, 199 (4th Cir. 2001) (quoting Daubert v. Merrell Dow
Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 588 (1993)).
The gatekeeping
requirement is meant “to ensure that the expert witness in
question in the courtroom employs the same level of intellectual
vigor that characterizes the practice of an expert in the
relevant field.”
United States v. Barnette, 211 F.3d 803, 8153
16 (4th Cir. 2000) (citing Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526
U.S. 137, 152 (1999)).
Ultimately, however, a district court’s
decision with respect to the admissibility of expert testimony
“is always a flexible one, and the court’s conclusions
necessarily amount to an exercise of broad discretion guided by
the overarching criteria of relevance and reliability.”
Oglesby
v. Gen. Motors Corp., 190 F.3d 244, 250 (4th Cir. 1999).
The district court may also exclude expert testimony
if it does not aide the finder of fact.
United States v.
Barile, 286 F.3d 749, 760 (4th Cir. 2002) (citing Kopf v. Skyrm,
993 F.2d 374, 377-78 (4th Cir. 1993) (stating that while “[a]n
opinion is not objectionable simply because it embraces an
ultimate issue to be decided by the trier of fact . . . such an
opinion may be excluded if it is not helpful to the trier of
fact under Rule 702”) (internal quotation omitted)).
“The
touchstone of the rule is whether the testimony will assist the
jury.”
United States v. Offill, 666 F.3d 168, 175 (4th Cir.
2011).
Legal conclusions or testimony that merely tells the
jury what result to reach is not likely to assist the jury in
its determination and is excludable.
Barile, 286 F.3d at 760
(citing Woods v. Lecureux, 110 F.3d 1215, 1220 (6th Cir. 1997)).
The Fourth Circuit has held that “it does not help the jury for
an expert to give testimony that states a legal standard or
draws a legal conclusion by applying law to the facts, because
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it supplies the jury with no information other than the
witness’s view of how the verdict should be read.”
Offill, 666
F.3d at 175 (quoting United States v. McIver, 470 F.3d 550, 562
(4th Cir. 2006); Weinstein’s Federal Evidence § 704.04[2][a] (2d
ed. 2003)) (internal quotations omitted).
The Court must
therefore “distinguish opinion testimony that embraces an
ultimate issue of fact from opinion testimony that states a
legal conclusion.
This task, however, is not an easy one.”
Barile, 286 F.3d at 760 (citing Owen v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 698
F.2d 236, 240 (5th Cir. 1983) (“[S]eparating impermissible
questions which call for overbroad legal responses from
permissible questions is not a facile one.”)).
III. Analysis
In short, Plaintiff contends that Mr. Johnson’s
testimony would usurp the jury’s ultimate fact-finding role and
not assist the jury in understanding the nature of fiduciary
duties and corporate governance.
(Pl.’s Mem. at 6-8.)
Alternatively, Plaintiff argues that Mr. Johnson’s testimony
should be excluded as unreliable because he bases his opinion on
the fact that Plaintiff was not a member of Otto’s Board of
Directors when, in fact, Plaintiff was a member of the Board.
(Id. at 10-12.)
The Court disagrees with both arguments and
will deny the motion to strike Mr. Johnson as an expert.
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Aware of its gatekeeping role described above, when
assessing whether expert testimony will assist the jury, the
Court is primarily concerned with ensuring the expert does not
simply provide his or her “view of how the verdict should read.”
Offill, 666 F.3d at 175 (citations omitted); Barile, 286 F.3d at
760 (quoting Weinstein’s Federal Evidence § 704.04[2][a] (2d ed.
2001)).
That is not the thrust of Mr. Johnson’s testimony here.
To be clear, Mr. Johnson does offer legal conclusions regarding
Plaintiff’s fiduciary duties and the corporate governance of
Otto in his report, and he intends to so testify if called at
trial.
(See The Report at 4.)
However, the Court is able to
distinguish this type of opinion testimony that states a legal
conclusion from “opinion testimony that embraces an ultimate
issue of fact.”
Barile, 286 F.3d at 760 (citation omitted).
The ultimate issue for the jury in this case is whether
Defendants tortuously interfered with Plaintiff’s contractual
relations and business expectancies with Otto.
121-140.)
(See Compl. ¶¶
Plaintiff’s role as CEO of Otto, and any associated
fiduciary duties that arise from that position constitute
collateral issues, and any expert testimony on those issues will
necessarily assist the jury in rendering a verdict on the
ultimate tortious inference claim.
This Court regularly excludes expert testimony that
opines or offers a legal conclusion as to the ultimate issue in
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the case, a decision that resides only with the factfinder.
See, e.g., Rueda v. Clarke, No. 1:14cv699 (LMB/IDD), 2015 WL
1236226, at *5 n.5 (E.D. Va. Mar. 17, 2015) (disregarding
attorney’s affidavit wherein he admitted under oath that he
provided ineffective assistance, which was the ultimate issue
for the Court to decide in a habeas corpus petition) (citations
omitted); The Harvester, Inc. v. Rule Joy Trammel & Rubio, LLC,
No. 3:09cv358, 2010 WL 2653373, at *7 (E.D. Va. July 2, 2010)
(striking an expert’s opinion concerning “the interpretation of
a statute, a matter not properly left to an expert witness, but
rather to the Court.”).
Mr. Johnson’s proposed testimony here
does not render a conclusion on the ultimate issue at trial, and
therefore, the Court will deny the motion.
In the alternative, Plaintiff contends that Mr.
Johnson’s testimony should be excluded as unreliable because it
is based on the incorrect information that Plaintiff did not
serve on Otto’s board of directors.
(Pl.’s Mem. at 8-12.)
However, “it is [Mr. Johnson’s] understanding that [Plaintiff]
was not in 2012 a stockholder of Otto, but that [Plaintiff] was
a member of its Board.”
(The Report at 12.)
Thus, Plaintiff’s
argument in this regard is simply misplaced, and the Court will
deny the motion on this basis as well.
IV. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, the Court will deny the
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motion to strike Defendants’ expert Lyman Johnson.
An appropriate Order shall issue.
April 28, 2015
Alexandria, Virginia
/s/
James C. Cacheris
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT JUDGE
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