7th Circuit Reverses Exclusion of Civil Engineering and Human Factors Testimony

In a legal malpractice case, the Seventh Circuit has reversed the trial court's exclusion of testimony from a civil engineering and human factors expert. The lower court barred the expert from testifying that the Cook County government's failure to maintain a road appropriately caused the accident at issue in the underlying litigation. The appellate panel faulted the district court's failure to explain its reasoning, apart from a simple recitation of the Daubert factors that omitted to detail how the district court applied them to the testimony in question. Although the panel left the Daubert issue for the district court to resolve afresh on remand, it strongly hinted that the testimony was well-defended and should be found admissible. See Mihailovich v. Laatsch, No. 01-3885 (7th Cir. Mar. 5, 2004) (Bauer, Manion, & Rovner, JJ.).