Psychology Expert Was Not Allowed to Opine on the Workplace Disagreement

Plaintiff Tyajah Williams initiated her lawsuit against Defendants Recovery Innovations Inc. (“RI”) and Michael Giles alleging wrongful discharge in violation of public policy.

Defendants Recovery Innovations Inc. and Michael Giles filed a motion to exclude the testimony of Dr. Tyson Bailey and Luke Fischer, two expert witnesses disclosed by the Plaintiff.

Psychology Expert Witness

Dr. Tyson D. Bailey received a Doctorate of Psychology (PsyD) in Clinical Psychology from Argosy University/Seattle in 2011. Bailey is a Licensed Psychologist in Washington Sate and board certified in clinical psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology.

Want to know more about the challenges Tyson Bailey has faced? Get the full details with our Challenge Study report.

Accounting Expert Witness

Luke Fischer is a Certified Public Accountant ("CPA") and has more than thirteen years of experience with cases involving investigative accounting, financial analysis, fraud examination, and economic research.

Discover more cases with Luke Fischer as an expert witness by ordering his comprehensive Expert Witness Profile report.

Discussion by the Court

1. Bailey's Opinions

According to Defendants, Plaintiff described a "workplace disagreement over the appropriate course of treatment for a client" between her and Giles, her shift supervisor, which was the predicate event for Bailey's expert opinion. Defendants argued that allowing Bailey's testimony would confuse the jury "as to the issues being tried and . . . which issues they can assess damages for," because Bailey's testimony does not focus on Plaintiff's claims of intentional discrimination as articulated in her complaint and instead centers on the conflict between her and Giles—which does not make up a cause of action in this lawsuit.

Bailey's report is irrelevant in this matter. As discussed, the Court has reduced Plaintiff's lawsuit to just one claim for unlawful discharge in violation of public policy, specifically related to her seeking protected leave. But Bailey's report is entirely premised on Plaintiff's altercation with Giles—and RI's alleged lack of response—as the basis for her emotional distress; he does not opine about her emotional distress in the context of her attempted return from leave.

Specifically, Bailey opined that Plaintiff "experienced psychological injury after being allegedly threatened at work, followed by experiences of institutional betrayal" and that "when considering the totality of the data, it is more probable than not that her current distress is associated with the alleged workplace incident and resulting institutional betrayal." But as already identified, the workplace incident is not the subject of Plaintiff's remaining claim. In the Court's view, Bailey's opinions cannot be separated from the incident between Plaintiff and Giles. Allowing Bailey's opinions would insert unnecessary confusion about Plaintiff's alleged emotional distress related to her interactions with Giles. Accordingly, the Court cannot conclude Bailey's opinions are reliable or relevant to Plaintiff's remaining claim.

2. Fischer's Opinions

Defendants also requested that Fischer's expert report be excluded because it is "entirely reliant on erroneous values and is based on insufficient evidentiary review." They also sought to exclude Fischer's report because its "methodology is seriously flawed, fails to even consider the facts of the case, and makes assumptions that are not based in or supported by the record."

Here, Fischer's opinion of Plaintiff's lost wages is not based on reliable information and should therefore be excluded. Defendants pointed out the following deficiencies:

• Fischer used the wrong rate of pay to calculate Plaintiff's alleged lost income. He apparently described Plaintiff's hourly rate as $28.54 per hour, when in reality, Plaintiff earned $22.50 per hour.

• Fischer's estimation that Plaintiff would have worked 2,200 hours in 2023 is unsupported by the record. Plaintiff was attending school during the relevant period; had a high-risk pregnancy during the relevant period; and had persistent attendance issues while employed, which all would have contributed to absences during 2023.

• Fischer's calculations assumed Plaintiff would be fully employed by RI, even though the facility where Plaintiff worked was closed permanently in March 2024 and all employees were laid off.

• Fischer employed an unreliable methodology when he assumed Plaintiff would earn a ten percent base pay increase, which apparently was not based on any facts in the record.

Plaintiff did not meaningfully dispute these arguments; instead, she cited directly to Fischer's declaration, where Fischer supplements his expert report by explaining the sources of certain data that he then applied to his calculation of Plaintiff's lost wages (explaining, for example, that the $28.54 hourly rate was pulled from the Employment Security Department's October 3, 2023 Work History Table and his estimation that Plaintiff would work 2,200 hours in 2023 was based on RI's report to the Washington Employment Security Department).

Some of the information in Fischer's report "directly contradicts" Plaintiff's deposition testimony, such as his conclusion that she would be earning more than $28 per hour. Other information seems speculative or not sufficiently based on facts or data consistent with Rule 702, such as his opinion that Plaintiff would have been fully employed by RI in 2024, despite knowing that the RI facility employing Plaintiff closed around six months after her termination.

Fischer's opinions appeared to be derived from external sources not specific to this case and is insufficiently tethered to the evidence in the record. Because Fischer's opinion is premised on "'guesswork,'" the Court cannot conclude that Fischer's methodology and opinion is reliable or helpful to the jury.

Along the same lines, Defendants argued that Fischer's testimony should be excluded because he "failed to interview any witnesses and only reviewed limited documents in forming his opinions." Indeed, Fischer's report indicates he reviewed a small number of documents in forming his opinions, and in her response to the Daubert motion, Plaintiff concedes that Fischer's report was produced (and was not later supplemented) without taking her second deposition into account.

The Court agreed that Fischer's failure to consider basic factual information from the record leads to the conclusion that his methodology was unreliable and his resulting opinion was not objective.

Defendants also argued that Fischer should be excluded because his report "includes only simple mathematical calculations that could easily be performed and understood by an average member of the jury."

Here, as discussed, Fischer's opinions are not helpful to the jury because they rely on information that is inconsistent with record evidence and/or is speculative. Therefore, it does not matter whether a layperson could conduct the same calculations as Fischer in determining Plaintiff potential lost wages; Fischer's testimony is excludable under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 because it is not based on reliable facts.

Finally, the Defendants argued Fischer's report violated Rule 26(a)(2)(B) because he did not include a complete statement of the "how or why" behind his opinions, nor did he provide a statement of his compensation in connection with this case. In her response, Plaintiff explained that several issues raised by Defendants "have been remedied" in Fischer's declaration. Apparently, Fischer's expert report was prepared before he reviewed the transcript of Plaintiff's second deposition, which was not taken until September 3, 2025. Notwithstanding, Fischer stated in his declaration he would "promptly" review the deposition transcript and "provide a revised report adjusting [his] findings to conform to that testimony." As of the time of this order, Fischer has not provided that revised report. Here, as with Bailey, Plaintiff failed to justify her lack of compliance with the requirements of Rule 26(a). Plaintiff's disclosure is both incomplete and untimely, and she has not met her burden to prove her deficient disclosure was harmless. Neither has she satisfied her burden to supplement Fischer's expert disclosure. As such, the Court independently excluded Fischer's report based on her failure to comply with Rule 26(a).

Held

The Court granted Defendants Recovery Innovations Inc. and Michael Giles' motion to exclude the testimony of Dr. Tyson Bailey and Luke Fischer.

Key Takeaway

Expert opinion testimony is relevant if the knowledge underlying it has a valid connection to the pertinent inquiry. Expert testimony which does not relate to any issue in the case is not relevant and, ergo, non-helpful.

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