Bey v. Malec

Background

On February 12, 2020, Raq Bey filed a document titled “Affidavit of Fact: Objection, Motion to Strike and Exclude Evidence & Disclosure of Steve Papenfuhs for Defendants.” The defendants had designated Steve Papenfuhs as an expert on police practices and had made the required disclosures. Papenfuhs was offered to give an opinion about whether the defendant officers’ use of force conformed to generally accepted law-enforcement practices, procedures, and training in California.

Legal standard

The court applied Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and the reliability and relevance requirements discussed in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Rule 702 permits expert testimony when the expert’s specialized knowledge will help the factfinder, the testimony is based on sufficient facts or data, the expert uses reliable principles and methods, and the expert reliably applies those principles and methods to the case. The party offering the expert testimony has the burden of showing that it is admissible.

Ruling

The court found that Bey’s objections went to the weight of Papenfuhs’s conclusions, rather than the testimony’s relevance or reliability. Based on Papenfuhs’s report, the court determined that he appeared to be an appropriate expert for the subject of his proposed testimony. The court denied Bey’s motion, without prejudice to appropriate objections, if any, at trial.

The court separately ordered the defendants to produce to Bey and the court, by March 6, 2020, all documents and information Papenfuhs relied on in his report. It also ordered the parties to submit mutually agreeable alternative trial dates by that date. Finally, after Bey stated at the hearing that he was having difficulty viewing materials on the federal court’s electronic filing system, the court said it would inquire into and attempt to determine the problem.