Section 16.30 Federal Agency Reports

• Library: Evidence 2017

c. (§16.30) Federal Agency Reports

Sometimes a long-standing statutory exception will provide a method of admitting into evidence what would otherwise be considered expert testimony. That is what happened in Rodriguez v. Suzuki Motor Corp., 996 S.W.2d 47 (Mo. banc 1999).

In Rodriguez, the plaintiff was injured in a vehicle accident when her car rolled over. The plaintiff’s case was premised on the theory that the accident was caused by a design defect that made the vehicle likely to roll over in the type of driving situation the plaintiff became involved in. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, an agency of the federal government, conducted studies of the vehicle’s rollover characteristics. It concluded that the methodology used by the plaintiff’s experts was faulty and that the vehicle’s “real-world” rollover characteristics were well...