Transportation Expert Was Not Allowed to Opine on Hiring Practices
Posted on January 6, 2026 by Expert Witness Profiler
Plaintiff Casey A. Drake sued the Defendants Crete Carrier Corporation and Reuben Robert Shaffer for personal injuries arising from a vehicle collision. Drake was riding in a car driven by his niece, Erica Diehl. Shaffer was driving a tractor-trailer. As the two drivers passed a wrecked vehicle, they collided.
Drake retained Robert Kelly and Jack Leifer as experts to testify that Shaffer caused the collision. The Defendants filed motions to exclude their testimony.
Transportation Expert Witness
Robert P. Kelly was a police officer for ten years. During that time, he investigated more than 300 collisions involving commercial vehicles. He has certifications specific to traffic enforcement and is certified as a driving instructor for commercial vehicles.
Accident Reconstruction Expert Witness
Jack Leifer is a mechanical engineer who has taught university courses relating to dynamics, kinematics, and statics and has published multiple works related to the relationships between impacts and force.
He is an affiliate of the Society of Accident Reconstructionists and a member of the Texas Association of Accident Reconstruction Specialists. Leifer is responsible for numerous publications and presentations about topics related to accident reconstruction, and he has participated in continuing education courses dedicated to accident reconstruction.
Discussion by the Court
Robert Kelly
A. Qualification
The Defendants argued that Kelly is not qualified to opine on the cause of the collision because he is not an accident reconstructionist.
A police officer may testify about the cause of a traffic accident if he has sufficient skill and knowledge. As a result, the Court held that Kelly has sufficient experience working with commercial vehicles and investigating collisions involving them to opine on the cause of the collision at issue here.
B. Reliability
The Defendants also argued that Kelly’s testimony would be unreliable because he based his opinion solely on two photographs and did not visit the accident scene, conduct any interviews, or take any measurements.
Kelly based that opinion on his review of footage recorded by a responding police officer’s body camera, two frames of which are reproduced in his report. Those frames appear to show the hood and front tires of the disabled vehicle extending into the right lane over the dashed white line that divides the road. Kelly also reviewed the responding officer’s crash report, which repeated Diehl’s claim that Shaffer moved from the right lane into the right-hand shoulder and struck her car.
Whether a vehicle has space to maneuver is the kind of determination an expert can make based on his review of photographs and videos alone. By reviewing the images available here, Kelly could see the amount of unobstructed space in the right lane of traffic and, applying his knowledge, determine whether or not a tractor-trailer would be able to safely traverse the lane without moving into the shoulder.
C. Irrelevance of Crete’s conduct
Kelly also stated his opinions about Crete’s hiring of Shaffer, Shaffer’s qualifications, whether Crete kept adequate records, and whether Shaffer was adequately trained. The Defendants challenged those opinions as unreliable and as irrelevant to the central issue of causation. Drake did not assert a direct negligence claim against Crete. He sought to hold Crete vicariously liable for Shaffer’s alleged negligence at the time of the collision.
Whether Shaffer was qualified, whether Crete kept adequate records, and whether Shaffer was adequately trained do not bear on whether Shaffer was negligent at that time. Evidence that has no tendency to make a material fact more or less probable is not admissible. As such, the Court excluded Kelly’s opinions about hiring, qualifications, record keeping, and training.
Jack Leifer
A. Qualification
The Defendants argued that Leifer, like Kelly, is not qualified to opine on the cause of the collision because he is not an accident reconstructionist.
His report discusses, based on the damage to Diehl’s car and the conditions of the roadway, the forces that likely applied to the vehicles and the relative speeds that would probably have generated those forces.
Leifer’s observations are based in physics, and his CV reflects substantial knowledge and experience in the relevant scientific fields. The Court held that he is well-qualified to opine and reasonably apply his observations to the facts of this case.
B. Reliability
The Defendants made three arguments that Leifer’s methods and data are unreliable. First, they asserted that Leifer relied on a scientific study that is old and distinguishable from the facts of this case. Second, they argued that, during his deposition, Leifer could not “state with certainty” how the collision occurred. Finally, they noted that Leifer could also not initially state at his deposition what source supported his opinion that lanes of traffic are generally 11–12 feet wide.
Analysis
As to the first argument, both the study Leifer relies on and his own opinion are grounded in physics. The laws of physics operated the same way in 2002, when the challenged study was published, as they did when the collision at issue here occurred.
As to the second argument, Leifer testified that the collision might have occurred in one of three ways: Shaffer’s tractor-trailer was moving to the right, Diehl’s car was straddling the fog line, or Diehl was moving to the left. Although Leifer conceded that any of those three scenarios was possible, he testified that it is most likely that Shaffer was moving to the right at the time of the collision. That opinion was based on his opinions that Shaffer’s vehicle was likely moving faster than Diehl’s and that it would have been unsafe for Shaffer to drive straight through the right lane without moving to the shoulder.
As to the Defendants’ final argument, Leifer’s inability to recite, on the spot during his deposition, a source stating that traffic lanes are generally 11–12 feet wide did not impugn his report’s validity. Leifer testified that he used the standard width of a traffic lane to calculate an approximate location of the collision. Although he also testified that traffic lanes are generally 11–12 feet wide, that figure does not appear in his report.
It would be unreasonable to deem his testimony unreliable just because he had not memorized the citation for a figure, particularly one that did not appear in his report.
Held
The Court granted in part and denied in part the motion to exclude Robert Kelly’s testimony and denied the motion to exclude Jack Leifer’s testimony.
Key Takeaway
As with an expert’s qualifications, whether an expert’s methodology is reliable depends on the particular circumstances of each case. Reviewing photographs, especially where, as here, that review is bolstered by other materials, is not necessarily an unreliable method. In appropriate circumstances, photographs can provide sufficient information for an expert to apply his knowledge and experience and form an opinion.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Drake V. Crete Carrier Corporation |
| Docket Number: | 4:23cv1021 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court, Texas Eastern |
| Order Date: | January 05, 2026 |
