MARYLAND: Testimony of Insurers Fire Investigation Expert Is Excluded

In the case of Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company v. Tecumseh Products Company, a subrogation action brought by Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company after it paid its insured hotel operator approximately $100,000 for damages resulting from a fire on November 13, 2006 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Owings Mills, Maryland, the United States District Court for the District of Maryland excluded the testimony of Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company’s expert witness, a fire investigator, because he did not meet the generally accepted standards of fire investigation and because he did not satisfy the requirements of testing and ruling out of other hypotheses.

The Court observed that the party seeking admission of expert testimony bears the burden of establishing admissibility by preponderance of the evidence.  The Court granted the Defendant’s motion to strike the Plaintiff’s expert, on the grounds that the expert was not a qualified expert and that the methodology that he employed in reaching his conclusions was unreliable.

The details of the expert’s opinions are interesting, but the important lesson from this case is that expert opinions are not always admissible, and can be attacked and excluded in those situations in which the expert is not a qualified expert or his methodology can be shown to have been unreliable.