Anthony Perrotti was an engineer who designed navigation control systems for air- and spacecraft. Aside from a brief stint at another aerospace company, he worked for Lockheed for his entire career, from when he was an intern in college until he died from gastroesophageal cancer at age 47. After his death, Jennifer Perrotti, his widow, brought this suit against Lockheed for negligence and strict liability, alleging that toxic chemicals at the facility where he worked caused his cancer.
Plaintiff relied on Dr. Ranajit Sahu, a fate-and-transport engineer to establish causation. The Court filed a motion to exclude the testimony of Sahu.
Environmental Engineering Expert Witness
Dr. Ranajit (Ron) Sahu has over thirty one years of experience in the fields of environmental, mechanical, and chemical engineering. He has over twenty eight years of project management experience and has successfully managed and executed numerous projects in this time period. He has provided consulting services to numerous private sector, public sector and public interest group clients.
Discussion by the Court
Sahu’s opinions are as follows. In the companion case, Sahu used Lockheed’s reported emission rates to model the concentrations of the substances at issue to which people in the area surrounding the facility were exposed, and then he compared those concentrations to the background exposures of the general population of the state. He concluded that the concentrations modeled in the area nearby were many times higher than the background exposures. The Court found that methodology reliable.
Adopting that analysis in this case, Sahu then concluded that the decedent was “likely exposed” to the substances at issue via “occupational exposures.”
Sahu characterized the decedent’s exposures as “elevated,” but he declined to quantify particular levels of exposure, instead performing a qualitative assessment. In his rebuttal report, Sahu noted that the studies he relied on concerning occupational exposures likewise did not quantify particular dosages.
He pointed out that precise quantification would have required historical recordkeeping that Lockheed did not do, and he noted that any modeling he could conduct now would not capture the emissions to which this decedent in particular was exposed beginning three decades ago.
Specifically, Lockheed argued: (1) because Sahu did not quantify the dose levels, no reliable data shows the decedent was likely exposed to the substances at issue; (2) Sahu’s failure to investigate exactly where the decedent worked in the facility and model exposures inside the facility means he cannot reliably show exposure; (3) the studies Sahu cited did not reliably support his conclusions because they do not all pertain to cancer; and (4) Sahu improperly relied on some data outside the time period of the decedent’s work.
Analysis
The Court held that the lack of a quantitative dosage assessment specific to the decedent did not make Sahu’s methodology unreliable. Based on his three decades of experience as an engineer in the field of air emissions, Sahu reconstructed data from the time of the decedent’s employment using Lockheed’s records to show the emissions coming from the facility, examined the ventilation system to determine that the decedent would have been exposed to those emissions through the air, and concluded that the decedent was likely exposed at elevated levels comparable to subjects in occupational exposure studies.
Therefore, the conclusion that the decedent was exposed on-site at elevated levels logically flows from Sahu’s reliable opinion that individuals nearby were exposed to elevated levels against background.
The Court found Lockheed’s secondary arguments similarly unavailing. Sahu explained that no matter where the decedent was working at the facility, he would have been exposed throughout.
Sahu opined that insufficient containment and ventilation systems meant the decedent would have been exposed inside or out. He explained why he did not model inside the facility and why doing so would not have been useful anyway. He relied on studies examining occupational exposures because that was the opinion he was asked to provide—on workplace exposure, not the decedent’s particular cancer. Sahu referenced chemical usage records during the years of the decedent’s employment, and he explained that emissions prior to the decedent’s work also caused ongoing contamination.
Held
The Court denied Lockheed’s motion to exclude the testimony of Ranajit Sahu.
Key Takeaway:
Lockheed may quibble with exactly what Sahu’s opinion—that the decedent was “likely exposed” to the chemicals at “elevated” levels—can (and cannot) tell the jury about whether the chemicals caused his cancer. But there is nothing about this methodology or the data it interprets that is insufficient or unreliable from a Daubert standpoint.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Perrotti V. Lockheed Martin Corporation |
| Docket Number: | 6:22cv1338 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court, Florida Middle |
| Order Date: | September 02, 2025 |
