Plaintiff filed its Original Petition with the Court on March 25, 2022, alleging causes of action for breach of contract, negligence, fraudulent inducement, negligent misrepresentation, fraud, and a constructive trust – Plaintiff sought relief in the form of actual and exemplary damages.
This lawsuit arises from a proposed security upgrade construction project that was to involve the construction of significant physical improvements and modifications to the BISD campus and purportedly would involve an electronic monitoring and communication system that would link Banquete Independent School District (hereinafter referred to as “BISD”) to local law enforcement agencies in the event of a school attack or other kind of emergency (hereinafter referred to as the “Project”). The total cost of the project was $2,199,762 and involved an additional recurring annual fee of $46,149 payable to the Alliance for Community Solutions, LTD.’s (hereinafter referred to as “ACS”) in perpetuity, presumably for monitoring and storing data from the system.
According to the Plaintiff, the only document officially presented to the BISD Board of Trustees (hereinafter referred to as the “Board”) was an Interlocal Agreement between BISD and ACS, which did not include any of the details, scope of work, or costs of the Project. Current Superintendent of Schools, Stacy Johnson has made numerous requests for information and accounting to ACS, but ACS has failed to provide BISD with any information. Between the time the Project began and the date of the filing of this lawsuit, very little progress has been made by ACS and the work that has been performed is subpar in comparison with industry standard for this type of work.
Plaintiff alleged that Defendant’s expert Joe Abrams lacked the experience to testify as a qualified expert witness and is too biased to testify as an expert witness in this lawsuit.
Project Management Expert Witness
Joe Abrams is both the Executive Director and Chairman of ACS. Abrams was also involved with the formation of ACS. He assisted and provided input on the creation of ACS’s bylaws and helped with the filing of certain documents involved in forming the company.
His specialties include collaborative systems, information sharing, interoperability, inter-agency information, regionalism, centralized credentialing, emergency resource systems, volunteer systems, responder registry, enterprise homeland security solutions, special needs registry, communications system, enterprise deployment, online training programs, training coordination, program management, surveillance systems, critical infrastructure registry, inventory management, project management and event calendaring.
Discussion by the Court
Defendant stated that Abrams is expected to testify regarding the following topics: (1) extent and sufficiency of the work performed by ACS; (2) accuracy and completeness of the assessment of ACS work summarized in the report prepared for BISD by the Plaintiff’s expert; (3) sufficiency of the cost estimates provided by the Plaintiff’s expert; and (4) the amount of damages ACS is seeking in its counterclaims.
Banquete asserted that Abrams, as the Executive Director and Chairman of ACS, has a financial interest in the outcome of the case and therefore, his testimony is irrelevant because he cannot give unbiased expert testimony.
When this case was referred to United States Magistrate Judge Jason B. Libby for case management, he opined that the factfinder can weigh the extent to which Abrams’ financial interest in the outcome of the case bears upon his testimony’s credibility.
In his deposition, Abrams stated he is not and has not ever been a general contractor, he does not have any firsthand experience in commercial construction, and ACS relies on video and surveillance experts, including law enforcement, when installing electronic monitoring and communication systems. Libby held that Abrams is not designated as a construction expert for this case involving the design and installation of a security system.
Instead, Banquete should be afforded the opportunity to cross examine Abrams about these issues and the jury may then determine the weight to be given to his testimony after being given proper instructions.
The Court adopted Libby’s recommendation and denied the Plaintiff’s motion to exclude the testimony of Joe Abrams.
Held
The Court denied the Plaintiff’s motion to exclude the testimony of Joe Abrams.
Key Takeaway:
While Banquete uses the key words relevancy and reliability, its arguments actually relate to the weight to be given to Abrams’ testimony, not to the admissibility. The Court should not substitute its own judgment for that of the jurors who will be the factfinders in this case.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Banquete Independent School District V. The Alliance For Community Solutions, Ltd. |
| Docket Number: | 2:22cv94 |
| Court: | United States District Court, Texas Southern |
| Order Date: | November 26, 2024 |
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