Miller et al. v. Golden Peanut Company, LLC et al.

Facts

Miller v. Golden Peanut Company, LLC was a wrongful death lawsuit that arose out of a collision between a tractor-trailer driven by Lloy White and a car driven by Kristie Miller. White was driving the tractor-trailer while hauling peanuts when he turned left to travel northbound on a two-lane road. At the same time, Miller was driving her car southbound when White turned into her path. Miller collided with the side of the tractor-trailer, killing her.

Georgia State Patrol investigated the collision. Sergeant Chad Fallin completed the investigation and issued a 102-page SCRT report. In the wrongful death lawsuit filed by Miller’s survivors, the plaintiffs sought to exclude the following portion of Sgt. Fallin’s report and any related testimony:

For unknown reasons, [Kristie] did not recognize the tractor-trailer being driven by [White] entering the roadway from a private–from a private field drive. It is the opinion of the investigating officer that [Kristie] was distracted by something and failed to slow her vehicle down to allow for the trailer to clear her travel lane before the collision.

The plaintiffs also moved to exclude Sgt. Fallin’s opinion that White had the right of way, arguing that it was a legal conclusion and not the proper subject of the officer’s testimony.

The trial court denied the plaintiffs’ motion to exclude, reasoning that an investigating officer is presumptively qualified as an expert and need not meet the additional evidentiary burdens contained in O.C.G.A. § 24-7-702 and Daubert. The Court of Appeals affirmed this ruling, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari. 

Issues & Holdings

1. To what extent does a law enforcement officer have to be qualified as an expert under O.C.G.A. § 24-7-702(b) to give expert testimony if called to testify in a civil case resulting from an accident? The Supreme Court held that an officer’s opinions do have to pass the admissibility test under Rule 702 and Daubert to be admissible.
2. How should a court determine what portion of the officer’s testimony constitutes expert testimony? Expert opinions involve any opinions that result from a process of reasoning that can be mastered only by specialists in the field, while lay opinion testimony results from a process of reasoning familiar in everyday life. 
3. If the officer has to be qualified as an expert under § 24-7-702, was the trial court correct in denying the plaintiffs’ motion to exclude the portion of the officer’s report? The trial court failed to properly perform its gatekeeping function in that it failed to consider either the reliability or helpfulness of Sgt. Fallin’s testimony. 

Reasoning

The Supreme Court began its analysis by discussing the difference between lay opinion testimony and expert testimony. The Court relied on cases interpreting Federal Rules of Evidence 701 and 702, and the Advisory Committee Notes to the Federal Rules of Evidence. 

Citing Eleventh Circuit precedent, the Supreme Court stated that lay opinion testimony relates to things like “the appearance of persons or things, identity, the manner of conduct, the competency of a person, degrees of light or darkness, sound, size weight, distance, and an endless number of items that cannot be described factually in words apart from inferences.” See Tampa Bay Shipbuilding & Repair Co. v. Cedar Shipping Co., 320 F.3d 1213 (11th Cir. 2003). On the other hand, expert opinion testimony is based on the witness’s “scientific, technically, or other specialized knowledge, “[a]nd the ability to answer hypothetical questions is the essential difference between expert and lay witnesses.” See United States v. Henderson, 409 F.3d 1293, 1300 (11th Cir. 2005).

The Court also looked to the Advisory Committee Notes to Federal Rule 701, which provides that lay testimony “results from a process of reasoning familiar in everyday life,” while expert testimony “results from a process of reasoning which can be mastered only by specialists in the field.” See Fed. R. Evid. 701, Advisory Committee Note. 

Applying this test, the Supreme Court held that Sgt. Fallin’s disputed testimony constituted expert testimony. Accident reconstruction requires the application of knowledge skill, experience, training, or education. Sgt. Fallin was not an actual eyewitness to the collision but instead was testifying based on his tests, accident reconstruction, and the application of his technical and specialized knowledge to the facts he learned. 

Having determined that Sgt. Fallin’s disputed testimony involved expert opinions, the Supreme Court addressed whether his opinions were subject to a Daubert analysis. While it should seem obvious that they were, prior Georgia Court of Appeals cases had made the answer to this question rather murky. Prior decisions had developed what was known as the “investigating officer rule,” which allowed an officer to opine about the cause of an accident without the need for a Daubert analysis. Those decisions were decided with little analysis and before Georgia adopted the Federal Rules of Evidence, including Rule 702. 

The Supreme Court concluded that the investigating officer rule did not survive the passage of Georgia’s new Evidence Code in 2013. The Court reasoned that Georgia’s adoption of Rule 702, which is materially identical to Federal Rule of Evidence 702, required that Georgia courts look to federal cases, rather than prior Georgia decisions interpreting the old Evidence Code. And under federal decisions, the law is clear that expert opinion testimony–whether provided by a fact witness, a law enforcement officer, or some other type of witness–must be analyzed under Rule 702. 

In rejecting the investigating officer rule, the Supreme Court wrote:

[N]othing in the language of Rule 702 supports the trial court’s conclusion that an investigating officer’s testimony is somehow exempted from the statute’s admissibility standard or comports with White’s argument that the investigating officer rule is somehow a streamlined version of Daubert’s clear standards. Accordingly, we conclude that when an investigating officer is called to provide an expert opinion, the trial court must perform the same gatekeeping function under Rule 702 that it is required to do with all expert witnesses.

The Court’s reasoning and conclusions on these issues required that it reverse the trial court’s decision to admit the testimony because the trial court had not evaluated the reliability or helpfulness of Sgt. Fallin’s testimony. The Court declined to apply the reliability and helpfulness analysis for the first time on appeal and remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with the opinion.

Conclusion

The Supreme Court’s decision in Miller is important for a few reasons. One reason is its immediate holding:  the reversal of the investigating officer rule. Going forward, it is clear that any attempt to admit opinion testimony from an investigating officer will have to overcome a Rule 702 analysis. 

Another reason that the decision is important is that is reminds courts that decisions under the old Evidence Code cannot be used for guidance where the new evidence rule Georgia adopted is materially identical to a Federal Rule of Evidence. Instead, courts should look to decisions from the United States Supreme Court and the federal Courts of Appeals.

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Citation: Miller et al. v. Golden Peanut Company, LLC et al., No. S22G0905
(S. Ct. Ga. August 21, 2023)