Turner v. Red Brick Road, LLC, et al., 2025-J-0272 (2025)

The Massachusetts Appeals Court upheld the trial court’s exclusion of a defense liability expert’s testimony in a case where a young man died after falling through a rotted and defective railing on a roof deck in Nantucket, MA. SUGARMAN’s attorneys brought a motion, known as a Daubert/Lanigan motion, after receiving the defense expert’s disclosure in which he used “MADYMO” simulation software to try to claim that the young man had essentially ran into the railing, causing it to fail. In addition to the fact that such an opinion was essentially impossible and lacked any evidence in the record, SUGARMAN successfully challenged the credentials of the defense expert, Dr. John Zolock of Exponent, and his use of the simulation software to support his opinions. Both the trial court and the Appeals Court agreed with SUGARMAN that Dr. Zolock was a motor vehicle accident reconstructionist with no stated expertise in biomechanical engineering or human falls. The court further agreed that Dr. Zolock’s use of “MADYMO” software to try and recreate the fall was unreliable as the scientific community had repeatedly warned users about its limitations and its inability to accurately model the type of complex fall at issue in the case.