David Badagliacco, a Skokie, Illinois police officer, sued Safariland, LLC, alleging his exposure to pepper spray during their training course was the reason he suffered from an eye infection necessitating cornea replacement surgery. Badagliacco contended that the negligent, willful and wanton operation of the training course caused his injuries.
Plaintiff David Badagliacco retained expert witness Patrick Schuerman, an inspector for the Illinois Occupational Safety and Health Administration to testify regarding the standard of care for provision of a decontamination station when training for use of a substance like pepper spray.
Badagliacco’s treating physician, Ali Djalilian, an ophthalmologist and corneal specialist, offered an opinion about whether pepper spray can cause the injury Badagliacco suffered.
Safariland argued that there is insufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find that any breach of Safariland’s duty with respect to provision of a decontamination station caused Badagliacco’s injuries. Specifically, Safariland argued that neither: (1) the OSHA inspector, Patrick Schuerman; nor (2) Badagliacco’s treating physician, Ali Djalilian, are qualified to offer an opinion regarding the causation of the injuries to Badagliacco’s eyes.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration Expert Witness
Patrick Schuerman is a member of Midwest Safety Consultants LLC. He has
expertise in workplace safety, accident investigations, and State and Federal
Standards as it relates to Occupational Health and Safety. He has had 30 years of Safety and Risk Management Experience. In addition, he has been an instructor at Illinois Valley Community College, teaching industrial safety since 2012.
Ophthalmology Expert Witness
Ali R. Djalilian is a recognized authority on immunologic issues in corneal/limbal stem cell transplantation and the surgical management of severe ocular surface disease. He has developed innovations in surgical techniques that substantially improve the surgical efficiency and the patient outcomes. Djalilian bridges his clinical experience with his basic science and translational research projects, which have been funded in part by the National Eye Institute/NIH and Research to Prevent Blindness. He joined the department in 2005. He is board certified in ophthalmology.
Discussion by the Court
The Court agreed that Schuerman lacked the necessary expertise to testify about the cause of an eye injury. However, Schuerman’s testimony is intended to address the standard of care for provision of a decontamination station, not causation of Badagliacco’s eye injury. The Court does not understand Badagliacco to be offering Schuerman’s testimony to prove causation. Safariland had not challenged his qualification on the standard of care issue, and the Court found him qualified for that limited purpose. The causation of Badagliacco’s eye injury, however, implicates the physiology of the human eye, and Badagliacco has not argued that Schuerman has any expertise in that subject area, so the Court barred him from testifying about it.
Djalilian has treated Badagliacco’s eye injuries, and therefore was qualified to offer an opinion about whether pepper spray can cause the injury Badagliacco suffered.
The Court rejected Safariland’s argument that Djalilian was not qualified to opine on whether the “pepper spray could injure the eye such that an infection could develop” because he is not a toxicologist or epidemiologist. Toxicologists or epidemiologists are generally not experts in the physiology of the eye.
The Court held that this argument concerned the weight of Djalilian’s testimony, not its admissibility.
Held
While there is nothing about Patrick Schuerman’s expertise that would qualify him to offer an opinion about the cause of an eye injury, the Court found him qualified to testify about the standard of care for provision of a decontamination station.
As for Ali Djalilian, the Court held that he is an expert in the functioning of the human eye, and thus qualified to offer an opinion about whether pepper spray can cause the injury Badagliacco suffered.
Key Takeaway:
A treating physician’s opinion about causation is admissible without disclosure as opinion evidence pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2), as long as the physician made the determination about the cause of the injury “in the course of providing treatment.”
Djalilian testified that in the course of his treatment of Badagliacco’s injuries he determined that they were caused by the pepper spray.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Badagliacco v. Safariland, LLC |
| Docket Number: | 1:21cv2424 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division |
| Order Date: | May 9, 2025 |
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