Tennessee Law & Expert Witnesses: Blazin Wings Case Highlights Damage Limits

Charles Haney, an ATM business owner, suffered injuries after tripping over a mat at a Blazin Wings restaurant in Jackson, Tennessee. He was visiting the restaurant to perform routine maintenance on an ATM, one of several that Haney owned and operated throughout West Tennessee. 

Haney initiated this tort action against Blazin Wings, seeking damages, including lost wages, and retained vocational expert Bruce Brawner and economist Bill Malcolm Brister to support his claims.

Vocational Rehabilitation Expert Witness

Bruce Brawner is a vocational rehabilitation counselor and also a life care planner. He formed Brawner & Associates in Madison, Mississippi. He has a master’s degree in vocational rehabilitation counseling from Mississippi State University.

Get the full story on challenges to Bruce Brawner’s expert opinions and testimony with an in-depth Challenge Study. 

Finance Expert Witness

Bill Malcolm Brister teaches finance at Millsaps College. He holds a PhD. from the University of Arkansas. He has done a good bit of consulting in the area of litigation support.

Want to know more about the challenges Bill Malcolm Brister has faced? Get the full details with our Challenge Study report. 

Discussion by the Court

Relying on Federal Rules of Evidence 702 and 403, Blazin Wings made three overarching arguments with respect to Brawner: first, Brawner’s testimony was unnecessary because the jury can assess Haney’s loss of earning capacity without that testimony; second, Brawner’s opinions were unreliable and untrustworthy; and third, Brawner’s testimony will confuse the jury. As to Brister, Blazin Wings likewise invoked Rules 702 and 403. It argues that ” Brister’s opinions are based solely on the unreliable and untrustworthy figures used by Brawner,” and should accordingly be excluded as cumulative, duplicative, and unreliable. Finally, Blazin Wings contended that because Haney cannot recover damages for loss of household services under Tennessee law, Brawner’s and Brister’s opinions regarding that loss are irrelevant and otherwise unreliable. 

Bruce Brawner

Defendant’s Objections:

Blazin Wings first argued that Brawner’s expert testimony was not necessary for the jury to calculate Haney’s lost earning capacity. 

They asserted that Haney could provide sufficient testimony about his injuries and their impact on his earning capacity, making Brawner’s specialized input unnecessary. The Court held that Haney would be able to testify to the obvious nature of his symptoms and its impact on his ability to work. But it does not follow that an expert witness’s testimony is unnecessary to help establish the extent of his losses. This basis is thus insufficient to exclude Brawner’s testimony.

Blazin Wings criticized Brawner’s reliance on Department of Labor data for “ATM Servicers,” claiming it was an imprecise match for Haney’s unique business. They insisted on the necessity of Haney’s actual financial records. They argued that Brawner failed to account for Haney’s continued income from his ATMs after the incident. Blazin Wings contested Brawner’s work-life expectancy calculation, arguing that it ignored Haney’s health and medical history, including that Haney has diabetes and has had both his bladder and prostate removed.

Blazin Wings contended that Brawner’s testimony would confuse the jury and waste time, as the jury could independently assess Haney’s damages.

Analysis:

The Court found Brawner’s testimony regarding lost wages relevant and reliable under Rule 702. It emphasized that challenges to Brawner’s data and assumptions affected the weight of his testimony, not its admissibility. The Court stated that cross examination was the appropriate place to challenge the experts findings.

Bill Brister

Defendant’s Objections:

Blazin Wings argued that Brister’s opinions were unreliable because they were based on Brawner’s “unreliable” data. They argued that Brister’s testimony was cumulative, simply “parroting” Brawner’s calculations.

In his report, Brister relied on the lost earnings calculations provided by Brawner and government data to calculate the present value of those losses. In the appendices to his report, Brister outlined his calculations for various scenarios and provides the sources he relied on.

Blazin Wings has presented no authority that an expert may not rely on the calculations of another expert. Indeed, under Rule 703 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, “experts may rely on data from others, at least to the extent that the data is of the type reasonably relied on by other experts in the field.”

Moreover, the Court held that Brister’s testimony is probative as to the issue of damages. Furthermore, reliance on another expert’s report does not necessarily render that expert’s testimony cumulative. While Brister’s report may go to the same issue, it nonetheless offers a distinct perspective on the time-value of Haney’s purported losses. 

Loss of Household Services

Blazin Wings argued that Tennessee law doesn’t allow recovery for the general “loss of value” of one’s own household services. The Court agreed, stating that only actual expenditures for replacement household services are recoverable.

Basically, Brawner relied on “expectancy data” provided by the Department of Labor to inform his calculation——not testimony from Haney regarding what he had paid or would pay someone else to perform household services. Similarly, in his expert report, Brister did not identify any actual or predicted expenditures incurred by Haney on which he based his present value of lost household services figure.

Since Brawner and Brister’s calculations were based on general data, not Haney’s actual expenses, their testimony on household service loss was excluded.

Held

The Court granted in part and denied in part the Defendant Blazin Wings’s motions in limine to exclude the testimony of Bruce Brawner and Malcolm Brister.

Key Takeaways:

• Projections of lost wages, by nature, involve a degree of speculation; even where an expert’s factual bases for their conclusions are not particularly strong. It is not proper for the Court to exclude expert testimony merely because the factual bases for an expert’s opinion are weak.

• Also, the Court recognized that while Haney could testify to the impact of his injuries, expert testimony was necessary to quantify his economic losses.

Case Details:

Case Caption:	Haney V. Buffalo Wild Wings, Inc.
Docket Number:	2:23cv2686
Court:	United States District Court, Tennessee Western
Order Date:	March 4, 2025