8th Circuit Reverses Exclusion of Accident Reconstruction Experts

The Eighth Circuit has reversed a trial court decision that excluded testimony from plaintiffs' accident reconstruction experts and awarded summary judgment to defendants. The district court relied in part on differences between conditions in the experts' testing and during the accident. Those differences were not so substantial, the appellate panel held, as to render the experts' opinions unreliable. See Sappington v. Skyjack, Inc., No. 06-3855 (8th Cir. Jan. 4, 2008) (Bye, Bowman, & Smith, JJ.).