CHICAGO – U. S. Seventh Circuit appellate judges reversed a jury verdict in a forklift accident trial on Feb. 1, finding District Judge Stephen McGlynn improperly excluded an expert’s opinion that forklifts need doors.
The appellate court found the methodology of expert John Meyer was sound and his opinion was relevant.
They found he was the only expert plaintiff Adelaida Anderson offered to testify on the effect of a door, and a door was his primary alternative design suggestion.
They waived their standard practice of requiring a different judge when they reverse a verdict, stating they had no doubt that McGlynn could offer a fair retrial.
Anderson operated a forklift at a warehouse in Effingham.
In 2017, she claims she hit a bump and fell to the floor.
The forklift ran over her leg, causing injury that required amputation.
She sued forklift maker Raymond Corporation in 2019.
Raymond moved to exclude Meyer’s opinion on doors under a standard that the U. S. Supreme Court adopted in a case by the name of Daubert.
Raymond argued that it doesn’t provide a door because it would prevent an operator from escaping if a forklift tipped over.
Raymond also argued that Meyer’s analysis and efforts weren’t sufficiently exhaustive or thorough enough for a jury to consider rejecting a consensus of engineers.
Raymond cited other judges who had excluded the opinion.
McGlynn relied on those judges and granted the motion.
“This court finds that John Meyer’s opinion that Raymond was negligent or that its forklift is dangerously and defectively designed because it does not come standard with a compartment door, especially one that locks or latches, simply does not pass the Daubert test,” he wrote.
He held trial in November 2021, and it ended with a defense verdict.
Anderson moved for a second trial, and McGlynn denied it last May.
Seventh Circuit judges found McGlynn addressed Meyer’s opinion in a single sentence.
Circuit Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote, “That is a conclusion, not an analysis, to which we owe no deference.”
He found McGlynn relied on a history of exclusion, “without evaluating methodological or factual similarities between the proffered expert’s opinion and those previously excluded.”
He wrote that Raymond offered doors to customers as an option, and Meyer found no increase in injuries from tipping over for those who elected to install doors.
“Raymond can critique the use of those customers as comparators, but such arguments go to the weight, not the admissibility, of Meyer’s testimony,” Easterbrook wrote.
Michael Warshauer of Atlanta and Frank McCoy of Hartford, Connecticut, represented Anderson with Ryan Brennan of Belleville as local counsel.
Francis LoCoco and Margaret Heitkamp of Milwaukee, Chalon Clark of Dallas, and Brian Bell of Chicago represented Raymond with former district judge Patrick Murphy of Marion as local counsel.