This is an automobile negligence case alleging that the Plaintiffs, Fred Young and Jeff Firman were permanently injured in a rear-end collision by an employee of the Defendant, Panera, LLC. The Defendant has retained and plans to call biomechanical engineer Ming Xiao, Ph.D., in its case-in-chief.
Plaintiffs requested the Court to exclude certain testimony of Defendant’s biomechanical engineering expert, Dr. Ming Xiao. Plaintiffs argued that Xiao did not cite any scientific study to support his testimony that the forces Plaintiffs experienced in the collision were analogous to those resulting from certain activities of daily living, such as running, jumping, plopping in a chair, and picking up an object. In the alternative, Plaintiffs stated, “Assuming that these specific analogies were not simply made up by Xiao, a review of the studies listed in the report’s appendix revealed a likely source for their insertion in his report.”
Accident Reconstruction Expert Witness
Dr. Ming Xiao holds a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Biomechanics. He is a registered professional engineer, an Accredited Traffic Accident Reconstructionist (ACTAR), and a Certified Playground Safety Inspector (CPSI). His primary areas of consulting expertise include injury consistency biomechanics, accident reconstruction, and playground safety.
Discussion by the Court
Plaintiffs noted that one study cited by Xiao, the Allen 1994 study, was excluded by a judge in the Middle District of Florida because the results of the study were found not to have been generally accepted by the scientific community and because the study’s probative value was outweighed by its potential to mislead or confuse the jury.
The Court disagreed with Plaintiffs’ characterization of Xiao’s report. While Xiao did not provide citations for each statement in the report analogizing the mechanical loads Plaintiffs allegedly experienced to those experienced in daily activities, Xiao cited several peer-reviewed studies that supported his analogies, four of which Xiao summarized in his affidavit.
Additionally, contrary to Plaintiffs’ concern that Xiao’s conclusions are based solely on the Allen 1994 study, which Plaintiffs allege is unreliable because the study was based on a sample size of only young, healthy adults, Xiao explains in his report, “Occupant motions in response to motor vehicle accidents have been extensively studied by biomechanical engineers through staged crash tests using human volunteers, post-mortem human surrogates, and anthropomorphic test devices. To this date, published peer-reviewed literature has over 2,000 human volunteer exposures subjected to rear-end and frontal collision tests. The volunteers varied in age (up to 68 years old), gender, height, weight, and medical conditions.”
The Court observed that Defendant summarized several additional studies upon which Xiao relied that were published within the last 10 years and showed that comparisons of forces in motor vehicle collisions and those in daily activities were generally accepted in the scientific community.
Held
The Court permitted Xiao to testify regarding his comparisons of the mechanical loads Plaintiffs would have experienced to those experienced when engaging in activities such as running, jumping, plopping in a chair, and picking up an object. As Defendant noted, this testimony will relate the impact Plaintiffs experienced to “activities with which the jury has experience and can relate to.”
Key Takeaway:
When Plaintiffs argued that Xiao did not cite any scientific study to support his testimony, the Court found that the Allen 1994 study was originally published in a journal with a rigorous peer-review process and has been cited 130 times by other peer-reviewed scientific articles. Xiao also cited 98 other peer-reviewed studies. These studies are examples of biomechanical engineers and scientists using similar methodology regarding comparison of activities of daily living. Defendant summarized several additional studies upon which Xiao relies that were published within the last 10 years and show that comparisons of forces in motor vehicle collisions and those in daily activities are generally accepted in the scientific community.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Young Et Al V. Panera, LLC |
| Docket Number: | 8:22cv2894 |
| Court: | United States District Court, Florida Middle |
| Order Date: | August 1, 2024 |
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