Triple S Farms v. DeLaval Inc. and West Agro

Background

Plaintiffs — dairy farmers Triple S Farms, LLC; Green Acres Dairy, LLC; Charles Fry and Emily Snyder; Rocky Point Farms, Inc.; and Northcrest Dairy, Inc. — purchased or leased the V300, a robotic milking system manufactured by defendants DeLaval Inc. and West Agro, Inc. Plaintiffs allege defendants misrepresented the V300's ability to safely and effectively milk cows and produce high-quality milk fit for consumption. Plaintiffs moved to certify a class of 127 V300 purchasers.

In opposition to class certification, defendants submitted reports from two expert witnesses: David A. Reid, D.V.M. (Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine), and Terry Smith, Ph.D. in Dairy Science/Agricultural Economics. Before the court ruled on class certification, plaintiffs moved to exclude both experts' opinions from consideration at the class-certification stage.

Legal Standard

Federal Rule of Evidence 702 governs the admissibility of expert testimony. Under that rule, an expert's opinion is admissible if the expert's specialized knowledge will help the fact-finder, the testimony is based on sufficient facts or data, it reflects reliable principles and methods, and those methods were reliably applied. Courts exercise a "gatekeeping" role but apply a liberal standard that favors admissibility. At the class-certification stage, the court noted that this gatekeeping function is less exacting, because the judge — rather than a jury — is the audience for the evidence, and there is less need to guard against unreliable scientific testimony.

Motion to Exclude Dr. Reid (Dkt. 498)

Dr. Reid's Opinions

Defendants retained Dr. Reid to review and respond to opinions offered by plaintiffs' expert regarding the V300's effects on milk production, milk quality, and cow health. Dr. Reid's report addressed how dairy farms manage mastitis (an inflammation of mammary tissue in cows commonly caused by infectious agents) and how individual farm conditions — including barn design, bedding, feed, water quality, and management practices — affect milk quality and production. He observed that the transition to a robotic milking system like the V300 requires shifting focus from group management to individual cow management.

Dr. Reid personally inspected Rocky Point Farms and Northcrest Dairy, and reviewed videos and photographs from inspections of Triple S Farms and Green Acres Dairy. Based on those observations, he identified multiple individualized farm-condition issues — such as suboptimal stall setups, insufficient bedding, poor feed storage, inadequate manure removal, and unclean equipment — that he opined affected each farm's milk quality and production. He also reviewed fact witness depositions and other farm documents.

It was undisputed that some of the somatic cell count (SCC) data — a key measure of mastitis — underlying certain demonstrative charts in Dr. Reid's report was inaccurate. Dr. Reid acknowledged this and acknowledged that those charts should be amended. However, he maintained that his opinions based on personal observations and other unchallenged sources remained unchanged.

Court's Analysis

The court rejected plaintiffs' argument that Dr. Reid effectively withdrew his entire report at his deposition, finding that plaintiffs cited statements out of context and that Dr. Reid explicitly stated he stood by his opinions. The court also found that the portions of Dr. Reid's report it actually relied upon were independent of the flawed SCC data, being grounded instead in his personal farm inspections, review of other unchallenged evidence, and extensive professional experience. The court found those opinions — particularly regarding how individualized farm conditions affect milk production and quality — relevant and useful to the class-certification inquiry, specifically in evaluating whether individual issues would predominate over common questions. The court stated explicitly that it was not relying on any portion of Dr. Reid's opinions that analyzed or depended upon the flawed data.

Applying the less stringent admissibility standard applicable at the class-certification stage, the court denied plaintiffs' motion to exclude Dr. Reid's testimony.

Motion to Partially Exclude Dr. Smith (Dkt. 505)

Defendants also offered Dr. Smith's expert report, which concluded — using a statistical method plaintiffs challenged as unreliable — that plaintiffs' farms were not representative of other farms using V300s. Plaintiffs moved to partially exclude Dr. Smith's opinions, arguing his statistical methodology was unreliable, his analysis rebutted a damages methodology plaintiffs never proposed, and the inclusion of inaccurate data rendered his conclusions meaningless.

The court declined to resolve the merits of this motion. Because the court denied class certification based on a finding that individual issues predominate over common questions — without relying on the challenged portions of Dr. Smith's opinions — plaintiffs' motion to partially exclude Dr. Smith was denied as moot (meaning the court found no need to decide it).

Disposition

1. Plaintiffs' Motion to Exclude Opinions of David A. Reid, DVM (Dkt. 498): Denied. 2. Plaintiffs' Motion to Partially Exclude Opinions of Terry Smith (Dkt. 505): Denied as moot.

The underlying class-certification motion was also denied, though the opinion before the court addresses only the expert exclusion motions.