Plaintiff Sun State Ford initiated this action for monetary, declaratory, and injunctive relief on September 8, 2023. Defendant Ford Motor Company is a manufacturer and distributor of Ford brand vehicles, and Plaintiff is a constituent franchise dealer. This case arises from Defendant’s alleged breach of oral contracts, perpetration of unfair business dealings, and other unlawful practices.
Defendant filed a Daubert motion seeking to exclude the testimony of Plaintiff’s expert, Joseph Roesner.
Automotive Expert Witness
Joseph F. Roesner possesses a B.A. in business administration and history from the Marymount College of Kansas and an MBA from the University of Arizona.
Roesner has over 35 years of experience in the retail automotive industry and has conducted analyses and studies of hundreds of new motor vehicle dealerships of various line-makes, including Ford.
Discussion by the Court
Roesner was retained to determine whether the sale of “new retail Ford light and medium trucks by Rush Truck” impacted new retail Ford sales of Sun State Ford from October 2019 through 2024.
Roesner was told to accept two assumptions in forming his opinions: (1) Sun State Ford was told that Rush Truck would only be serving the commercial truck market and would not be competing for retail sales, and (2) to assume that “as a matter of law,” Rush Truck should not have made new retail Ford sales, and such sales should have been made by other licensed Ford dealerships.” He outlined two primary opinions. First, he opined that during the relevant time, “Sun State’s sales of new retail Ford vehicles sold by Rush Truck . . . would have at a minimum been 86 vehicles.” Second, he opined that the percentage of new retail Ford vehicles sold by Rush Truck during the relevant period is inconsistent with a dealership only serving the commercial vehicle market.
The Defendant argued that Roesner’s lost sales opinion is irrelevant and unhelpful because he did not convert the raw numbers or lost sales into damages. The Defendant also claimed that the opinions are unhelpful and unreliable because Roesner accepts assumptions from Plaintiff’s counsel that contradict the pleaded allegations and the testimony of Plaintiff’s main witness and therefore do not align with the facts of the case. Lastly, the Defendant asserted that the Plaintiff’s methodology is unreliable, because “some unknown number of what [Roesner] considered to be ‘retail’ sales could have been commercial sales.”
A. Calculation of Damages
The Plaintiff’s calculation of damages was not provided until August 28, 2025, after discovery closed on July 31, 2025, and after the Defendant filed its Daubert Motion. Furthermore, Roesner did not provide an opinion on the damages suffered by the Plaintiff. Since the Plaintiff failed to disclose its damages calculation until after discovery closed, making such evidence inadmissible, Roesner’s estimate of the sales allegedly lost to Rush Truck is unhelpful. Knowing the number of light-duty and medium-duty trucks sold by Rush Truck that should have been sold by the Plaintiff does not assist the jury in calculating damages. In short, nothing in Roesner’s report addresses the types of damages the Plaintiff identified in its Rule 26 disclosure.
Accordingly, the Court excluded Roesner’s opinions regarding the number of new retail Ford vehicles sold by Rush Truck during the relevant period.
B. Assumptions and Methodology
Roesner was asked by Plaintiff’s counsel to assume that Rush Truck would only serve the commercial truck market and would not compete with Plaintiff for retail sales, and to further assume that, as a matter of law, such retail sales should have been made to other licensed Ford dealerships.
Roesner’s assumption that Rush Truck was prohibited from selling any retail vehicles conflicts with the evidence. The question is whether this inconsistency between the assumptions and the facts renders Roesner’s opinion about Rush Truck’s retail sales, and thus those lost by the Plaintiff, inadmissible. The same issue applied to Roesner’s claim that the percentage of new retail Ford vehicles sold by Rush from 2019 to 2024 is inconsistent with a commercial truck seller.
Roesner’s reliance on these assumptions undermines his methodology. That is, Roesner’s method for counting the sales that the Plaintiff “lost” to Rush Truck does not consider that Rush was allowed to make retail sales incidental to their heavy-duty truck and fleet customers. This is because he was instructed to assume that Rush Truck was prohibited from making any retail sales.
Roesner’s opinion on lost sales suffers from a similar flaw. He relied on the assumption that retail sales made by Rush Truck should have been made by other licensed Ford dealerships. This assumption overlooks the fact that Rush Truck was allowed to make retail sales incidental to its heavy-truck and commercial customers.
Held
The Court granted the Defendant’s Daubert motion to exclude Joseph Roesner’s opinions.
Key Takeaway
Roesner did not specify the data or analysis supporting his conclusion that if Rush’s retail sales were impermissible, they would have been captured by Plaintiff.
Because Roesner’s reliance on assumptions provided by Plaintiff’s counsel weakens his methodology for calculating “lost” retail sales and his characterization of Rush Truck as operating inconsistently with commercial sales, the Court excluded these opinions as unreliable.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Sun State Ford, Inc. V. Ford Motor Company |
| Docket Number: | 6:23cv1728 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court, Florida Middle |
| Order Date: | March 27, 2026 |
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