HomeMy WebLinkAbout00-2358 CivilLORETTA RUNK, : IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS OF
Plaintiff : CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
:
v. : CIVIL ACTION- LAW
:
GREG McNAUGHTON :
and PHANTOM :
COMMUNICATIONS, :
INC., :
Defendants : NO. 00-2358 CIVIL TERM
IN RE: DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR A FRYE HEARING
BEFORE OLER, J.
ORDER OF COURT
AND NOW, this 13~day of June, 2001, upon consideration of defendants'
motion in limine for a Frye hearing, and for the reasons stated in the
accompanying opinion, the motion is denied.
BY THE COURT,
sley 0i'~0):., · '
David L. Lutz, Esq.
4503 North Front Street
Harrisburg, PA 17110
Attorney for Plaintiff
Gregory E. Cassimatis, Esq.
4999 Louise Drive, Suite 103
Mechanicsburg, PA 17055
Attorney for Defendants
LORETTA RUNK, · IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS OF
Plaintiff · CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
v. · CIVIL ACTION - LAW
GREG McNAUGHTON ·
and PHANTOM '
COMMUNICATIONS, ·
INC., '
Defendants · NO. 00-2358 CIVIL TERM
IN RE: DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR A FRYE HEARING
BEFORE OLER, J.
OPINION and ORDER OF COURT
OLER, J., June i~ , 2001.
This negligence action for personal injuries arises out of an automobile
accident in 1998 which occurred when a vehicle driven by one defendant, while
allegedly acting in the course of his duties as an employee of the second
defendant, rear-ended a vehicle being driven by the plaintiff. The plaintiff
allegedly suffered some loss of mental capacity because of the accident.
Counsel have requested that this court consider two motions in limine (filed
by defendants) in advance of trial in order to facilitate settlement negotiations.
One motion, which is the subject of this opinion and order, seeks a Frye hearing to
determine whether certain testimony of a psychologist engaged by plaintiff should
be excluded on the theory that it would not meet the test of general acceptance for
purposes of reliability. Specifically, defendants contend that any attempt by the
psychologist to contrast post-accident results on a Wechsler Adult Intelligence
Scale-III test administered to plaintiff with results of two Otis Intelligence tests
administered to plaintiff when she was in high school in 1955 and 1960 would be
scientifically indefensible.
DISCUSSION
In the context of scientific or technical evidence presented by an expert,
"the 'general acceptance' test is derived from the landmark case of Frye v. United
States." Packel & Poulin, Pennsylvania Evidence §702-2, at 673 (2d ed. 1999),
(citing Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C. Cir. 1923)).
The court irl Frye observed as follows:
Just when a scientific principle or discovery crosses the
line between the experimental and demonstrable stages is
difficult to define. Somewhere in this twilight zone the
evidential force of the principle must be recognized, and while
courts will go a long way in admitting expert testimony
deduced from a well-recognized scientific principle or
discovery, the thing from which the deduction is made must be
sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in
the particular field in which it belongs.
Frye at 1.014.
The Frye general acceptance test is typically applied to broad rather than
narrow questions of science, technique and methodology, such as the admissibility
of evidence based on the horizontal gaze nystagmus test, child sexual abuse
syndrome, polygraph results, spectrogram or voice prints, hypnotically refreshed
recollection, DNA analyses, microscopic examination of hair samples, and
electrophoretic analyses of dried blood. See Packel & Poulin, Pennsylvania
Evidence §702-2, at 674 (2d ed. 1999).
Although a court should obviously be willing to conduct a Frye hearing in
appropriate circumstances, where a serious question exists as to whether science or
technology to be proffered to the jury bears more than a pretense of legitimacy,
such an inquiry can involve a significant investment of time and money, including
expert fees, on the part of the parties to a case and should not be undertaken
lightly. In the present case, it seems to the court that the tests which were
administered to plaintiff were not themselves extraordinary or controversial in a
scientific sense, and that the question of whether, and to what degree, their results
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can productively be compared to each other by psychologists is better left to the
test of cross-examination and an assessment of the weight of conflicting testimony
by the trier-of-fact.
For this reason, the following order will be entered:
~.. ORDER OF COURT
AND NOW, this l_~ day of June, 2001, upon consideration of defendants'
motion in limine for a Frye hearing, and for the reasons stated in the
accompanying opinion, the motion is denied.
BY THE COURT,
/s/J. Wesley Oler, Jr.
J. Wesley Oler, Jr., J.
David L. Lutz, Esq.
4503 North Front Street
Harrisburg, PA 17110
Attorney for Plaintiff
Gregory E. Cassimatis, Esq.
4999 Louise Drive, Suite 103
Mechanicsburg, PA 17055
Attorney for Defendants
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