Betts v. Sixty Lower East Side, LLC

Background

Margaret Betts sued Sixty Lower East Side, LLC, Sixty Hotels, LLC, and Sixty Hotel Manager, LLC after an alleged sexual assault by a massage therapist during an in-room massage appointment at the hotel. In an earlier ruling, the court found that the defendants violated New York Education Law § 7802, constituting negligence per se, and that their conduct proximately caused Betts’s injuries by allowing an unregistered and unauthorized massage therapist to perform the massage. The pending opinion concerned motions about expert testimony for the scheduled damages trial, not the previously decided liability issues.

Betts offered Dr. Steven A. Fayer and Dr. Joseph Otonichar as experts on her psychological injuries. Dr. Fayer diagnosed trauma-induced anxiety with features of post-traumatic stress and stated that the assault significantly worsened several conditions. Dr. Otonichar concluded that Betts had significant trauma-induced psychiatric symptoms, including new and worsening symptoms that caused severe distress and functional impairment. The defendants offered Dr. Julie Medlin, who concluded that Betts’s symptoms did not meet the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder and that other issues also contributed to her emotional distress.

Legal standard

Federal Rule of Evidence 702 governs expert testimony. It permits a qualified expert to testify when specialized knowledge would help the factfinder, the testimony is based on sufficient facts or data, reliable methods, and a reliable application of those methods. The court also applied the reliability and relevance principles associated with Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and explained that the inquiry must be tied to the facts of the case. Federal Rule of Evidence 403 permits exclusion of relevant evidence when its value is substantially outweighed by risks such as unfair prejudice, confusion, or needless cumulative evidence.

Betts’s motion concerning Dr. Medlin

Betts argued that Dr. Medlin lacked the qualifications to testify, was not licensed to practice psychology in New York, and used unreliable psychological tests. The court rejected those arguments. It found Dr. Medlin qualified based on her psychology license, certification, education, and experience evaluating and treating sexual and physical trauma victims. The court also accepted the defendants’ explanation that Dr. Medlin was authorized through PSYPACT to conduct her evaluation in New Jersey, which participates in that interstate system.

The court further concluded that Betts had not provided enough evidence to show that the tests Dr. Medlin used—the Personality Assessment Inventory, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-3, Trauma Symptom Inventory-2, and Inventory of Problems-29—were unreliable or generally unaccepted. The motion to exclude Dr. Medlin’s report and testimony was denied.

The court did, however, grant Betts’s request to exclude references in Dr. Medlin’s testimony to alleged behavior by Betts’s lawyer during the examinations. The court found those references not directly relevant to the issues at trial. The court also said it did not need to decide Betts’s argument about allegedly incomplete expert disclosures because the defendants showed that the full disclosure had been provided. The defendants’ request for sanctions against Betts’s lawyer was declined at that time.

Defendants’ motion concerning Dr. Fayer and Dr. Otonichar

The defendants argued that Dr. Otonichar lacked sufficient credentials, used an unsupported method, and had not adequately addressed causation or permanency. The court disagreed. It found that his education and psychiatric work experience qualified him to testify. The court also found that his review of approximately eight years of psychiatric records, together with his own evaluation of Betts, satisfied Rule 702. His report identified symptoms that arose after the assault, addressed other possible causes, and described continuing residual symptoms. The court therefore denied the request to exclude his testimony about causation and permanency, explaining that concerns about the depth or form of his evaluation could be addressed through cross-examination.

The defendants raised similar objections to Dr. Fayer’s methodology and claimed that his report did not address causation or permanency. The court found that Dr. Fayer relied on his examinations of Betts and a review of psychiatric treatment records, which was adequate under Rule 702. The court also found that his report addressed both causation and permanency by linking Betts’s trauma-related symptoms and need for ongoing psychiatric treatment to the assault. The request to exclude or limit his testimony was denied.

The defendants also argued that Dr. Fayer’s and Dr. Otonichar’s testimony would be needlessly cumulative under Rule 403. The court rejected that argument because the experts examined Betts at different times—approximately three years and more than five years after the assault—and were expected to address different periods and aspects of her psychological condition. The court concluded that their testimony was neither cumulative nor duplicative.

Disposition

The court denied both parties’ motions in limine. Specifically, Dr. Medlin, Dr. Fayer, and Dr. Otonichar were permitted to testify, but references to Betts’s lawyer’s behavior were excluded from Dr. Medlin’s testimony. The clerk was directed to close the pending motions.