US Airways v. Sabre Holdings Corporation
US Airways, Inc., for American Airlines, Inc. as Successor and Real Party in Interest v. Sabre Holdings Corporation
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:11-cv-02725
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In US Airways v. Sabre, Judge Schofield granted in part US Airways’s motion, barring one damages opinion and cumulative expert testimony.
US Airways and Sabre, particularly their use of expert testimony at trial; Dr. Topel’s no-damages opinion was excluded, and Sabre had to avoid presenting cumulative expert opinions.
What happened
In US Airways, Inc., for American Airlines, Inc. as Successor and Real Party in Interest v. Sabre Holdings Corporation, US Airways asked the court to exclude two parts of Sabre expert Dr. Robert Topel’s trial testimony: his opinion that US Airways suffered no damages and testimony repeating other Sabre experts’ opinions.
The court excluded Dr. Topel’s opinion that US Airways suffered no damages because he had not provided his own complete damages analysis or a sufficient methodological basis for that conclusion. The court also barred Sabre from presenting cumulative expert testimony, while allowing Sabre to choose which expert would present overlapping opinions. Dr. Topel could still criticize US Airways’s damages analysis and explain that it provided no basis for finding damages.
Judge Lorna G. Schofield granted in part US Airways’s motion to exclude portions of Dr. Topel’s testimony and directed the clerk to close the motion.
The detailed version
- US Airways v. Sabre Holdings Corporation · No. 1:11-cv-02725
- Lorna Schofield
- Apr. 1, 2022
Background
US Airways moved under Federal Rules of Evidence 401, 402, 403, and 702 to exclude portions of the trial testimony of Sabre’s economics and damages expert, Dr. Robert Topel. The motion challenged two subjects: Dr. Topel’s opinion that the best estimate of US Airways’s damages was zero, and testimony that allegedly repeated opinions from Sabre’s other experts, Professor Kevin Murphy and Dr. Mark Zmijewski. US Airways did not otherwise seek to exclude Dr. Topel’s criticisms of Dr. Abrantes-Metz’s damages analysis.
Damages Opinion
The court applied Rule 702, which governs expert testimony and requires that the testimony be helpful, based on sufficient facts or data, produced through reliable methods, and reliably applied to the case. The court found that Dr. Topel’s conclusion that US Airways suffered no damages lacked a methodological basis. His report was a rebuttal report that criticized Dr. Abrantes-Metz’s analysis, rather than a report containing his own fully developed damages opinion. The court described the no-damages conclusion as a conclusory statement appended to his critiques.
The court noted that Dr. Abrantes-Metz had calculated alleged overcharge damages and lost profits through several analytical steps, including determining how a net booking fee would be allocated between airlines and travel agencies. Dr. Topel criticized those steps but did not perform his own analysis of the allocation issue; instead, he asserted that the fee would be paid entirely by airlines. The court therefore ruled that Dr. Topel could not offer an affirmative opinion that US Airways suffered no damages. He could, however, state that Dr. Abrantes-Metz’s analysis provided no basis for concluding that US Airways suffered damages from the challenged contract terms or other challenged conduct.
Cumulative Testimony
The court also ruled under Rule 403 that cumulative opinions by any expert on any subject were barred. To the extent Dr. Topel’s testimony repeated opinions attributed to Professor Murphy or Dr. Zmijewski, Sabre could choose which expert would present each opinion. If necessary, a second expert could rely on another expert’s opinion by reference without repeating the opinion and its justification.
Disposition
Judge Lorna G. Schofield ordered that US Airways’s motion to exclude portions of Dr. Topel’s testimony was granted in part. Specifically, Dr. Topel could not offer an opinion that US Airways suffered no damages, and Sabre could not offer cumulative expert testimony. The clerk was directed to close the motion at Docket No. 1096.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.