Safety Expert’s Testimony on Loading Practices Admitted
Posted on September 10, 2025 by Expert Witness Profiler
Marco Antonio Rodriguez and his wife, Rosanna Rodriguez, sued Americold Logistics, LLC and Frez-N-Stor, Inc. seeking damages for injuries he suffered while working at Americold’s facility in La Porte, Texas.
In March 2023, Rodriguez was instructed to remove pallets of frozen chicken from a railcar. He alleged that when he entered the car, hundreds of pounds of frozen chicken tipped over onto him, severely injuring his spinal cord and resulting in paralysis. He sued Americold for negligence in failing to ensure that the frozen chicken pallets had not shifted during the rail transit before starting to unload them. He also sued Frez-N-Stor, the company responsible for moving the frozen chicken parts from Arkansas to Houston, alleging improper packaging and packing of the frozen chicken pallets.
Frez-N-Stor filed a motion to exclude the Plaintiffs’ expert, Stephen Legge, who will opine that Frez-N-Stor failed to package the pallets in the railcar consistent with the industry standards of care and that Frez-N-Stor’s failure to do so caused Rodriguez’s injuries.
Safety Expert Witness
Stephen W. Legge is the Managing Director at Safety Mitigation Specialist, Inc., a consulting firm that specializes in health-and-safety requirements, including railway load securement. He also serves as a Safety and Security Consultant at Gannett Fleming, an architecture, engineering, and construction firm.
He provides consulting and training services on matters relating to railway transportation security and safety, including compliance with safety and security standards set by the Federal Transit Administration, the Federal Railroad Administration, and the Association of American Railroads.
During his career, Legge has accumulated myriad certifications concerning rail-transportation safety, including from programs affiliated with the U.S. Department of Transportation. He also chaired the subcommittee at the Association of American Railroads that is responsible for promulgating and approving safety standards about the safe loading of goods in railcars.
Discussion by the Court
Qualifications
Frez-N-Stor argued that Legge has no specialized education or training that would qualify him to discuss the physics-or engineering-related aspects of the load shift that he opined were present when the pallets tipped and fell. Frez-N-Stor added that Legge is not qualified to criticize its expert, Christopher Bonanti, because Bonanti bases his opinions on physics and engineering principles about which Legge has no relevant expertise.
Although Legge may or may not have the academic background to testify to the mathematical concepts behind load shifts in railcars, the Court held that he can certainly testify, based on his many years of experience and his expertise, about the reasons load shifts occur. He has certainly “seen a lot more [load shifts] than the jurors have.” Legge has worked in the railroad industry for 35 years, chaired the subcommittee of the Association of American Railroads that established standards about how to load safely goods onto railcars, trained individuals on how to comply with these standards, and investigated for railroads incidents of improper loading of goods onto railcars.
Beyond this on-the-job experience, numerous agencies and organizations governing railroad safety have accredited or certified Legge. Therefore, Legge is qualified to testify to the relevant standards of care that apply to safely loading goods on railcars, as well as to the accidents that may occur as a result of failing to adhere to those standards.
The Court held that Frez-N-Stor’s argument that Legge cannot rebut Bonanti’s opinions because Bonanti approached the issues from the perspective of physics and engineering is also unpersuasive. Legge may not be able to rebut directly Bonanti’s engineering-and physic-based opinions or calculations; he does not appear qualified to do so. But Legge may still rely on his own experience and expertise to highlight errors in how Bonanti approached the issues.
Relevancy and Reliability
Frez-N-Stor next attacked the relevance and reliability of Legge’s opinions. First, Frez-N-Stor argued that Legge’s opinions amount to conclusory, ipse dixit statements because they are not based on scientific studies or an accident reconstruction. Second, Frez-N-Stor argued that Legge’s opinions are unreliable because he failed to consider and rule out alternative causes of the accident. Third, Frez-N-Stor argued that Legge’s opinions are unreliable because they are based on the Association’s recommendations, which are not the industry standard and which do not cover the hazard at issue.
Ipse-Dixit Opinions
Frez-N-Stor argued that Legge’s opinions are mere ipse dixits that lack an adequate foundation. Legge opined that Frez-N-Stor failed to comply with the Association’s guidelines, resulting in 25 to 26 inches of void space in a 64-foot railcar that enabled the pallets to shift and fall on Rodriguez. Frez-N-Stor contended that this opinion lacks proper support because Legge did not do an accident reconstruction to analyze the forces applied to the railcar, did not run mathematical calculations, and did not perform fault-tree or root-cause analyses.
However, Legge reviewed the extensive record in the case. Legge then connected his experience, the Association’s warnings about the need to use proper fillings, airbags, or other dunnage when packing loads in railcars, and the testing that led the Association to adopt standards for the steps needed to safely pack loads in railcars for transit.
Frez-N-Stor responded that Legge overstated his opinions, implying certain causation when the Association’s standards express only the possibility of a load shift occurring because of excess void space in a railcar.
The Court found this response unpersuasive for two reasons. First, although the Association’s standards address only the probability of a load shift occurring if the railcar is not packed consistent with the standards, Legge can rely on his experience to testify that a load shift had occurred in every similar case he investigated. Second, even if Frez-N-Stor is correct that Legge is overstating his conclusions, overstatement does not warrant the complete exclusion of Legge’s testimony.
Alternative Causes
Frez-N-Stor next contended that Legge did not consider: (1) whether the railcar experienced turbulence that would have shifted the pallets of frozen chicken even if Frez-N-Stor loaded them in compliance with the Association’s standards; or (2) whether the accident occurred because of Americold’s negligence in unloading the pallets.
Frez-N-Stor highlighted that Legge previously used fault-tree or root-cause analyses to investigate accidents but admitted he did not do so here. Because of these omissions, Frez-N-Stor argued that Legge offered an improper res ipsa loquitur opinion that cannot establish liability.
First of all, the Court held that Legge’s failure to rule out possible alternative causes does not make his opinions unreliable. Legge is “entitled to assume” the “underlying fact” that no overly excessive force occurred during the rail transit, or that Americold was not negligent in a way that contributed to cause the accident, and a jury may give Legge’s opinions less or no weight if it believes either fact to be false. Basically, Frez-N-Stor’s alleged alternative causes did not provide a basis for excluding Legge’s opinions.
Moreover, there is insufficient evidence in the record establishing Frez-N-Stor’s alleged alternative causes to warrant excluding Legge’s opinions. No evidence creates a sufficiently compelling link between some excessive-force event and the falling pallets to warrant excluding Legge’s opinions. Frez-N-Stor also has not proffered enough evidence of Americold’s negligence to warrant excluding Legge’s opinions.
Finally, the Court ruled that Legge’s failure to conduct a root-cause or fault-tree analysis is not fatal to the reliability of his opinions.
The Association of American Railroads Standards
Frez-N-Stor argued that Legge cannot testify that the Association’s guidelines are the industry standards. However, the Court held that Legge can reliably opine that the Association’s guidelines reflect the industry’s standard of care. Additional evidence in the record supports Legge’s testimony. Mike Dickmeyer, Union Pacific’s corporate representative, testified that the Association sets the industry’s safety guidelines and that they are used as the industry standard.
When Frez-N-Stor responded that Legge’s reliance on Union Pacific’s Terms and Conditions transforms his expert testimony into impermissible legal arguments about contract interpretation, the Court held that Legge is not offering inappropriate legal conclusions by identifying references in record evidence to the guidelines that he argues are the industry standard. The Terms and Conditions provide “affirmative evidentiary support” of industry “customs.”
Frez-N-Stor also argued that Union Pacific’s Terms and Conditions undermine Legge’s testimony because the contract refers to the Association’s “rules”—which require a high standard for approval and on which Legge does not rely—as opposed to the Association’s “guidelines”—which have a looser standard of approval and on which Legge relies. However, these arguments do not warrant excluding Legge’s opinions. Legge testified in his deposition that the difference between “rules,” as used in the Union Pacific contract, or “guidelines” or “industry-setting standards” is irrelevant: the point is that the Association promulgates—whether as “rules” or as “guidelines”—concrete safety recommendations based on field testing.
Frez-N-Stor argued that the Association’s standards are irrelevant because they do not address unloading and because they are focused on avoiding freight damage, not worker safety. These arguments are, however, not a basis for excluding Legge’s opinions. First, Legge did not apply the Association’s standards to how workers unloaded the railcar. Second, the Association’s standards did address worker safety.
Failure To Timely Supplement
Frez-N-Stor finally argued that Legge untimely disclosed his supplemental report because he released it six months past the expert designation deadline.
Legge issued his initial report on November 15, 2024 and completed his supplemental report on March 27, 2025. It appeared that the Plaintiffs did not produce Legge’s supplemental report until June 10, 2025. This timeline suggested that the Plaintiffs failed to serve Legge’s supplemental report until the day of his deposition despite having it prepared well before then.
Under Rule 26, Rodriguez timely supplemented Legge’s opinions. In addition, the Court’s scheduling order set the relevant pretrial-disclosure deadline as September 23, 2025. The deadline for filing the Joint Pretrial Order was initially July 25, 2025, but the Court extended it to September 23, 2025, on Frez-N-Stor’s motion for continuance. Under all relevant deadlines, Legge timely supplemented his disclosures.
Finally, Frez-N-Stor did not show prejudice. If Frez-N-Stor felt it could not properly cross-examine Legge on the opinions in his supplemental report during his deposition, it could have sought to continue Legge’s deposition to another date or raise with the Court the need for an additional deposition on that supplemental report. Frez-N-Stor did not request either.
Held
The Court denied Frez-N-Stor’s motion to exclude Stephen W. Legge’s opinions and testimony.
Key Takeaway:
- Legge can reliably opine that the Association’s guidelines reflect the industry’s standard of care. An expert’s experience and qualifications can support his or her identification of industry standards.
- Legge’s failure to conduct a root-cause or fault-tree analysis is not fatal to the reliability of his opinions. Daubert requires that experts use reliable, rather than optimal or flawless, methodology.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Rodriguez, Et Al. V. Frez-N-Stor, Inc. Et Al |
| Docket Number: | 4:23cv3944 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court, Texas Southern |
| Order Date: | September 05, 2025 |
