State v. Locascio, 425 N.J. Super. 474 (App. Div. 2012). Expert opinion is an area in which decisions in the criminal realm find their way into civil cases as well. For example, Kemp v. State, 174 N.J. 412 (2002), is often cited in cases of any type that involve the proper scope of expert testimony. Today’s decision, written by Judge Sabatino, will doubtless be frequently cited in the future as well. In a nutshell, the Appellate Division held that a medical examiner who had been qualified as an expert in pathology had gone beyond the bounds of his expertise when he attempted to testify about matters of biomechanics and accident reconstruction.
This was a vehicular homicide case. Defendant and her boyfriend were in a one-car accident that resulted in the death of her boyfriend. A key issue at trial was which of them had been driving the car. The medical examiner, who concededly “lacks expertise in either biomechanics or accident reconstruction,” sought to present testimony that defendant was the driver, and to opine about the movements of each person within the car as it decelerated. The trial judge allowed the testimony. After defendant was convicted, she appealed. The Appellate Division reversed and remanded for a new trial.
The medical examiner was properly permitted to opine “as a pathologist concerning the cause and manner of [the boyfriend’s] injuries and death.” “[D]escribing the mechanics of death” is within the realm of pathology. But although “scientific and technical disciplines are not airtight compartments and … disciplines may overlap,” the medical examiner went beyond permissible bounds when he attempted to opine in the very different areas of biomechanics and accident reconstruction. Biomechanics is “[t]he science concerned with the action of forces, internal or external, on the living body,” while accident reconstruction involves testimony about “certain physical aspects of an accident such as vehicle mass, the direction of skid marks, vehicle dimensions, dents, paint transfers, road surface textures, and physics principles such as inertia, velocity, coefficients of friction, and the operating characteristics of vehicles.”
The opinion is very much moored in its particular facts, as many decisions about expert testimony are. It is well worth keeping in mind, however, for its impact in future cases in this continuously evolving area of the law.