Expert Witness Profiler

Tag: Disparate Impact

  • Urban Planning Expert Allowed to Opine on Municipal Zoning Practices

    Urban Planning Expert Allowed to Opine on Municipal Zoning Practices

    This case involves the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) and Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). Defendant, the City of Springfield, prohibited Plaintiffs from operating a home for residents in recovery from drug or alcohol addiction. Defendant claimed their zoning ordinance prohibited the home from operating in an R-SF Zone because it is a “group home” under the City’s zoning code and there is another “group home” located within 1/4 mile. The City classified the home as a group home because the residents who occupy the home are in recovery from drug and alcohol abuse. The City denied Plaintiffs’ request for a reasonable accommodation under the FHA and ADA.

    Plaintiffs brought claims of failure to accommodate, disparate treatment, and disparate impact under the ADA and the FHA.

    Plaintiffs have disclosed three experts in this matter. Stephen D. Villavaso was disclosed as an expert in professional and urban planning. Andrea Stevens is a real estate agent, who Plaintiffs wish to have testify as to the number of residential listings in the City of Springfield during a given timeframe. Finally, John Majer was disclosed to provide expert opinions concerning the operation of residential group homes for substance abuse treatment.

    Defendant filed a motion to exclude the testimony of the proposed expert witnesses disclosed by Plaintiffs for the reason that their proposed testimony did not meet the requirements set forth in Rule 702.

    Urban Planning Expert Witness

    Stephen D. Villavaso, J.D., FAICP is a professional urban and regional planner and a land use/zoning attorney with over forty years of experience in city and regional planning, environmental regulations, land use law, public administration and zoning.

    Villavaso’s degrees include a Bachelor of Science in Economics and a Master of Urban and Regional Planning, both from the University of New Orleans, and a Juris Doctorate from Loyola University of New Orleans. He has served the Louisiana Chapter of the American Planning Association, with thirty-five years of service to the APA — receiving both the Chapter’s Leadership and Distinguished Service Awards along the way. He is the Past-President of the Louisiana Chapter of the American Planning Association.

    Get the full story on challenges to Stephen Villavaso’s expert opinions and testimony with an in-depth Challenge Study.

    Real Estate Expert Witness

    Andrea Stevens is a real estate agent affiliated with Keller Williams Realty Elevate in Joplin, Missouri. Stevens has been practicing as a real estate professional since 2021 and is licensed by the Missouri Real Estate Commission.

    Discover more cases with Andrea Stevens as an expert witness by ordering her comprehensive Expert Witness Profile report.

    Psychology Expert Witness

    John M. Majer, Ph.D. is a full Professor of Psychology at Harry S. Truman College and a Consultant for the Center for Community Research at DePaul University, in Chicago, Illinois.

    Majer has extensive research experience in the field of clinical-community psychology, mostly involving persons with substance use disorders and sober living homes.

    Want to know more about the challenges John Majer has faced? Get the full details with our Challenge Study report.

    Discussion by the Court

    Defendant argued that the experts’ opinions are not based on reliable methodology, are not supported by sufficient facts or data, and are based upon theories that have not been tested.

    Stephen Villavaso is an expert in professional and urban planning, who offers opinions on municipal zoning practices, the City’s application of its ordinances, and the compatibility of the spacing requirements with accepted planning principles and DOJ/HUD guidance. Andrea Stevens is a licensed real estate professional, who analyzes residential housing market conditions in Springfield, including the availability of suitable properties during the relevant timeframe. Dr. John Majer is an expert in the operation of residential recovery housing, who provides insight into the therapeutic and operational requirements of recovery homes, as well as the practical implications of spacing requirements on their viability.

    This Court agreed that the arguments raised by Defendant’s motion go to credibility and the weight of the testimony which are subjects that may be raised during cross-examination.

    However, federal courts should limit their review to the materials that were presented to the local land use board while considering reasonable accommodation claims, except in circumstances where the board prevents applicants from presenting sufficient information. This general rule however, does not apply to disparate impact and disparate treatment discrimination claims.

    The Court found that the Plaintiffs were not prevented from providing the information they now seek to present. Plaintiffs were invited to resubmit their request to the proper individual, and asked to address several issues, which they chose to ignore when making their resubmission. Thus, the expert reports will be considered in the disparate impact and disparate treatment claims. The expert reports will, however, be excluded in the failure to accommodate claim.

    Held

    The Court granted in part and denied in part the Defendant’s motion to exclude or limit the testimony of Plaintiffs’ expert witnesses Stephen D. Villavaso, Andrea Stevens, and Dr. John Majer.

    Key Takeaway

    Plaintiffs’ experts may be relevant under Rule 702 and at this time, there is no basis to exclude them under Daubert. However, the Court excluded Plaintiffs’ expert testimony in the failure to accommodate claim because it was not presented to the City as part of Plaintiffs’ request for accommodation.

    Case Details:

    Case Caption: New Beginning Sanctuary V. City Of Springfield, Missouri
    Docket Number: 6:23cv3336
    Court Name: United States District Court, Missouri Western
    Order Date: January 22, 2026

  • Religious Studies Expert’s Testimony on the Beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses Admitted

    Religious Studies Expert’s Testimony on the Beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses Admitted

    Plaintiff Brianna Bolden-Hardge is a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and believes her faith forbids her from “swearing primary allegiance to any human government” and “swearing to engage in political or military activity—including taking up of arms.”

    She applied for a position with the Office of the California State Controller (“SCO”) and received an offer. However, her religious beliefs prevented her from signing an oath that the California Constitution requires public employees to take.

    Bolden-Hardge proposed signing the oath with an addendum expressing her own views on what she affirmed, which SCO understood to be a modification, not in conformance with applicable law, and thus rescinded the offer of employment. As a result, she alleged violations of her legal protections for religious freedom and accommodation.

    Plaintiff relied on certain expert opinions by Paul Finkelman, Ph.D., and Mathew N. Schmalz, Ph.D. Defendants filed a motion to exclude certain expert opinions of Finkelman and Schmalz. At the outset, the Court denied as moot the motion as to Finkelman because the Court did not find his opinions to be particularly helpful or relevant. Schmalz’s testimony on the other hand, was critical to Plaintiff’s Title VII disparate impact claim.

    Religious Studies Expert Witness

    Mathew N. Schmalz is a Professor of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross. He has published multiple research papers and essays on Jehovah’s Witnesses.

     Schmalz has served as “the academic expert commentator for programs on television/digital platforms that have reported on Jehovah’s Witnesses,” “provided expert commentary on Jehovah’s Witnesses for national media outlets,” and is currently serving as an expert consultant on pending legal cases “to provide context on Watchtower beliefs and practices and the internal dynamics shaping Jehovah’s Witness life.”

    Get the full story on challenges to Mathew Schmalz’s expert opinions and testimony with an in-depth Challenge Study.  

    Law And Legal Expert Witness

    Paul Finkelman is a specialist in American legal history, constitutional law, law and religion, civil rights and race relations, African American history, civil liberties, American Constitutional history, the American Civil War, and legal issues surrounding baseball.

    He was an expert witness in a number of cases including the lawsuit over the ownership of Barry Bonds’ 73rd home run ball (Popov v. Hayashi) and in the famous Alabama Ten Commandments Monument Case (Glassroth v. Moore).

    Want to know more about the challenges Paul Finkelman has faced? Get the full details with our Challenge Study report.

    Discussion by the Court

    In this case, Schmalz was retained by the Plaintiff to “provide expert analysis and possible testimony concerning the beliefs and practices of Jehovah’s Witnesses concerning oaths.”

    Defendants did not contest that Schmalz’s testimony is helpful, as it goes to the core of the disparate impact claim. Defendants also did not substantively argue that Schmalz is unqualified. While they stated that Schmalz has not published research on Jehovah’s Witnesses since 1998, they did not explain why this gap in time precludes him from being qualified to opine on matters in this case. Instead, Defendants’ principal argument is that portions of Schmalz’s opinions are so unreliable, speculative or constitute improper legal conclusions that they must be excluded. The Court disagreed.

    The Court found that Schmalz’s opinions are “based on sufficient facts or data” to survive Defendants’ motion to exclude. 

    Held

    The Court denied Defendants’ motion to exclude portions of Dr. Mathew N. Schmalz’s testimony. 

    Key Takeaway:

    After an expert establishes admissibility to the judge’s satisfaction, challenges that go to the weight of the evidence are within the province of a fact finder, not a trial court judge. A district court should not make credibility determinations that are reserved for the jury.

    Case Details:

    Case Caption: Bolden-Hardge V. Office Of The California State Controller Et Al
    Docket Number: 2:20cv2081
    Court Name: United States District Court, California Eastern
    Order Date: August 29, 2025
  • Economics Expert Witness’ Testimony on Disparities in Promotion Admitted

    Economics Expert Witness’ Testimony on Disparities in Promotion Admitted

    A district judge in Massachusetts admitted the findings of an expert economist meant to advance a theory of disparate impact.

    Plaintiffs Marc Savage (“Savage”) and Randolph Blake (“Blake”) (collectively referred to as “Plaintiffs”), a retired and current employee, respectively, of the Fire Department for the Defendant City of Springfield (“City” or “Springfield”), pursued claims of race discrimination against the City.

    Plaintiffs, who are Black, cited the Defendant’s failure to enforce the City’s residency ordinance which has denied promotional opportunities to Black and Hispanic firefighters. According to the Plaintiffs, Defendants maintained a racially hostile work environment and retaliated against them for engaging in protected activity.

    Plaintiffs indicated that they intended to call Dr. Christopher Erath as an expert during trial in connection with their claim that the City’s failure to enforce the City’s Residency Ordinance had a disparate impact on minority firefighters by depriving them of promotional opportunities within the department. Defendants asserted that Erath’s testimony should be excluded on Daubert grounds because disparities in promotion were not sufficiently significant to draw an inference of causation necessary to make out a prima facie case of disparate impact.

    Economics Expert Witness

    Christopher Erath received A.B. degrees in Economics and Mathematics from Bowdoin College and a Master’s and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin. Erath’s primary area of interest is labor economics. He has served as an expert witness in numerous matters involving damages in employment discrimination and wage and hour claims and has also prepared extensive studies of statistical liability in employment proceedings and opined on class certification issues.

    Get the full story on challenges to Christopher Erath’s expert opinions and testimony with an in-depth Challenge Study. 

    Human Resources Expert Witness

    Michael Campion is an Industrial and Organizational Psychologist and specializes in human resource management and organizational behavior. Dr. Campion operates a small consulting firm that has conducted over 1200 projects on a wide range of human resource topics for nearly 170 clients in both private and public sector settings. He has been a Professor of Management at Purdue University since 1986. Previously he worked full time for 8 years at IBM and Weyerhaeuser Cos.

    Discover more cases with Michael Campion as an expert witness by ordering his comprehensive Expert Witness Profile report.

    Discussion by the Court

    A. Expert Report of Christopher Erath, Ph. D.

    Erath indicated that he was asked to address two questions, as follows: (1) Are there racial differences in the rate at which employees satisfied the City of Springfield’s residency requirement?; and (2) Are there racial differences in the composition of the department’s officer ranks?

    According to Erath, his understanding was that any firefighter hired or promoted on or after March 17, 1995, was required to live in the City.

    In conducting his analysis, Erath utilized the spreadsheet provided by Plaintiffs’ counsel to calculate the percentage of firefighters who satisfied the residency ordinance by race (black, Hispanic, and white), both globally and by rank (firefighter, lieutenant, captain, and above). He then performed Fisher’s Exact tests to determine the likelihood that the different compliance rates by race could have occurred by chance. Finally, he calculated the percentage of firefighters of each race (black, Hispanic, and white) who achieved each rank (firefighter, lieutenant, captain, and above).

    Erath concluded that there was a high and statistically significant correlation between residency compliance and race among uniformed employees of the Springfield Fire Department and that if Springfield consistently enforced the 1995 residency requirement, the enforcement action would have disproportionately disqualified whites.

    B. Defendants’ Rebuttal Expert

    Defendants submitted an affidavit from Michael Campion, Ph. D., in rebuttal to the opinions of Erath. To begin with, Campion found fault with Erath’s analysis because it relied on data going back to 1984, rather than limited to the time periods established by the Court, for Plaintiff’s claims and for including the entire pool of Springfield fire fighters, rather than just those qualified for promotion.

    The Springfield Fire Department considered candidates who met the minimum experience requirements, took and passed the civil service exam, and had results coming within the 2n+1 formula for promotions.

    Campion then undertook his own analysis using what he maintains is a proper candidate pool for purposes of determining disparate impact in promotion consisting of candidates on the promotional lists from 2015 to the present.

    Campion claimed to find no statistical evidence of adverse impact for the jobs in either minority group during the period of the case.

    C. Motion to Exclude the Testimony of Christopher Erath

    Defendants contended that despite Erath’s use of the Fisher’s Exact test, the underlying data included stale data that goes back over thirty years and did not comport with Massachusetts Civil Service law governing eligibility for promotion because it included the entire pool of firefighters employed by SPD, without considering the Civil Service requirements.

    Defendant argued that if it involves the relevant statistical pool, consisting only of minorities and non-minorities qualified to undertake the ranked positions of Lieutenant, Captain, District, Chief, and Deputy Chief within the Springfield Fire Department during the pertinent time-period, the Court cannot draw an inference of causation based on the disparities in promotion.

    Plaintiffs argued that Defendants’ failure to disclose Campion as an expert under Rule 26 before the Court’s January 18, 2022 deadline compromised their ability to engage in requisite discovery, including deposing Campion.

    The Court held that Defendants were free to try to expose what they viewed as the shortcomings of Erath’s opinions on cross-examination, including by posing questions based on Campion’s analysis. However, the Court did not permit Defendants to call Campion as an expert witness based on their excused and unexcusable failure to comply with the deadline.

    Held

    The Court denied Defendant’s motion to exclude opinion testimony and declaration evidence of Christopher Erath.

    Key Takeaway:

    The factual basis of an expert opinion goes to the credibility of the testimony, not the admissibility, and it is up to the opposing party to examine the factual basis for the opinion in cross-examination. In other words, cross-examination was the appropriate tool for probing the underpinning of Erath’s testimony and not outright preclusion of his expert opinions.

    Case Details:

    Case Caption: Savage v. City of Springfield
    Docket Number: 3:18cv30164
    Court: United States District Court, Massachusetts
    Order Date: June 3, 2024