Law And Legal Expert’s Speculative Calculations of Future Earnings Excluded
Posted on August 26, 2025 by Expert Witness Profiler
Drew Dixon alleged that the Defendant, Antonio Marquis “L.A.” Reid sexually harassed her and refused to allow her to succeed unless she acquiesced to his demand to be alone and in close proximity to her while she was employed as an A&R executive at Arista Records from 1996 to 2002.
Dixon claimed that Antonio Reid sexually assaulted her twice in 2001.
Dixon departed Arista in 2002, leaving the music industry to pursue a degree at the Harvard Business School.
Defendant filed motions to preclude the testimony of Plaintiff’s expert witnesses, Michael Selverne, Mark Plotkin, and Dr. Chitra Raghavan, pursuant to Federal Rules of Evidence 702 and 403.
Law And Legal Expert Witness
Michael Selverne is an attorney who, for the past 39 years, has specialized in the field of executive compensation in the music industry. Over the course of his career, he has represented artists in their contract negotiations for recording and performance agreements, record executives in their negotiations of compensation packages with their employers, and music labels in their negotiations with executives.
Music Industry Expert Witness
Mark Plotkin holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from a joint program between Case Western University and The Cleveland Institute of Music and has over two decades of diverse experience in the music industry. Plotkin is a member of the Recording Academy, co-founded Decision Desk and Wifi Music School, and is the founder and CEO of Beast Music A.I., a media platform utilized by record labels such as RCA Records and Atlantic Records. Plotkin further serves as a Professor and the Area Head of Business and Technology at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Record Music.
Psychology Expert Witness
Dr. Chitra Raghavan is a licensed clinical psychologist with more than twenty years of experience. Raghavan received her doctorate in clinical and community psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and post-doctoral training at Yale University. Currently, she serves as a Professor of Psychology, Director of the Forensic Mental Health Counseling Program, and Coordinator of Victimology Studies in Forensic Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
She has previously testified as a witness for the prosecution in other cases regarding the effects of traumatic abuse and coercive control and given over 150 conference presentations and published over forty articles in various publications on subjects related to domestic violence, sex trafficking, and trauma.
Discussion by the Court
Michael Selverne
In connection with this litigation, Selverne submitted an expert report setting forth his opinions regarding Plaintiff’s lost future compensation. In rendering his opinion, Selverne reviewed Dixon’s compensation package during her time at Arista.
While the Plaintiff was hired in 1996 as a Senior Director for a two-year term, she was promoted to the position of Vice President when one of her “designated artist” albums sold 500,000 records. Selverne opined that the improvement in her compensation package and title in such a short time span indicated that Arista viewed Plaintiff as a “budding superstar.”
Reviewing the compensation packages of contemporaries of Plaintiff who rose to the ranks of CEOs for major music labels, Selverne concluded that, if Dixon had “continued along the trajectory she was on when she departed Arista, it is highly likely that Dixon’s earnings would have reached seven or eight figures annually. It is equally likely that Dixon would have created a joint venture with a major record company and see her fortunes rise into the nine figures.”
Analysis
Selverne did not purport to calculate Plaintiff’s lost earnings based on her actual compensation at the time she left Arista. Indeed, he did not purport to calculate her lost earnings at all. He did not, for example, specify how long Plaintiff would have expected to work in the industry, with reference to verifiable statistics regarding longevity in the industry or even actuarial tables reflecting life expectancy. He did not calculate the value of lost benefits.
Selverne’s lack of methodology in reaching his opinion on future earnings loss is reflected in his failure to quantify such damages. Selverne vaguely asserted that Plaintiff suffered damages in the range of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Selverne conjectures that Plaintiff not only would have continued to have a successful career in the music industry, but that she would have reached the pinnacle of the profession to become the CEO of a major record label or otherwise enter into a lucrative joint venture agreement. The Court held that these hypothetical promotions, bonuses, and business deals lack sufficient evidentiary foundation, and thus cannot form the basis of an expert opinion.
Mark Plotkin
Plaintiff retained Marc Plotkin to provide an expert opinion regarding the hypothetical earnings Plaintiff would have received from her A&R commission structure had she successfully signed Kanye West and John Legend.
Plotkin first looked to Plaintiff’s employment agreement for the relevant formula and then researched West and Legend’s first contracts with Def Jam and Columbia Records, respectively, as well as their sales data year by year to ultimately determine how many records and singles were sold across various mediums and the price per unit.
Analysis
Defendant objected to Plotkin’s reliance on historical data regarding record sales as the basis for his opinion. Defendant contended that it rests on the faulty assumption that West and Legend would have released the same albums while at Arista and thus earned the same revenues.
The Court held that these are the types of assumptions that go to the weight of the evidence, not admissibility. The use of historical data may not provide exactitude, but allows for calculations to a reasonable certainty, which is all the law requires.
Defendant also argued that the entirety of Plotkin’s opinion is speculative, in that it is unknown whether these artists would have signed to Arista if offered the chance or that they would have been deemed Dixon’s designated artists if they had done so. Defendant misapprehended the nature of Plotkin’s inquiry. Plotkin is not purporting to offer an opinion as to whether West or Legend would have signed to Arista, or if they had whether Dixon would have been responsible for signing them. Rather, his opinions are limited to a calculation of what commissions Plaintiff would have been entitled to under the terms of employment contract in the hypothetical world where she was responsible for signing the artists while at Arista.
Dr. Chitra Raghavan
Raghavan opined that she “found Dixon’s reported history to be believable” because she reported a decrease in recent symptoms rather than an increase, a pattern that would be typical of malingerers; Plaintiff’s emotional and physical responses were consistent with the experiences she relayed; she was able to clearly explain the abuse fact pattern and her narratives over multiple interviews; and three objective tests indicated that she responded genuinely about her mental health.
She further opined that Defendant “used numerous tactics of coercive control to maintain his abusive power” over Plaintiff, including physical violence, manipulation, sexual abuse, retaliation, and microregulation. Raghavan opined that the “sexual assaults and the atmosphere of coercion and hostility” that Plaintiff suffered triggered a severe episode of complex PTSD.
Analysis
The Court held that Raghavan’s anticipated testimony is replete with improper opinions regarding witness credibility and bolstering. Such bolstering testimony regarding the truth of the underlying factual allegations in the case is not the proper province of an expert witness.
The Court held that Raghavan is precluded, pursuant to Rules 702 and 403, from offering testimony at trial regarding Plaintiff’s credibility, including an opinion that Plaintiff was the subject of a sexual assault by Defendant or that Defendant exercised coercive control over Plaintiff. She is also precluded from opining on the causation of Plaintiff’s conditions. Raghavan can testify, however, as to coercive control generally, as background; her diagnoses of Plaintiff’s mental health conditions and the bases for her diagnoses; and that Plaintiff’s condition is “consistent with” that of individuals who have been sexually assaulted.
Held
- The Court granted the Defendant’s motion to preclude the testimony of Michael Selverne.
- The Court denied the Defendant’s motion to preclude the testimony of Mark Plotkin.
- The Court granted in part and denied in part the Defendant’s motion to preclude the testimony of Dr. Chitra Raghavan.
Key Takeaway:
Where lost future earnings are at issue, an expert’s testimony should be excluded as speculative if it is based on unrealistic assumptions regarding the Plaintiff’s future employment prospects.
Selverne’s opinion is not only of little assistance to a jury, but also rests on inherently speculative assumptions.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Dixon V. Reid |
| Docket Number: | 1:23cv9878 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court, New York Southern |
| Order Date: | August 21, 2025 |
