## Facts

- A mother rented a small fishing boat from a bait shop in Waterport, New York, for her 14-year-old son, Matthew Brooks, and his 15-year-old friend to use unsupervised, despite their lack of legal eligibility to rent or operate it.
- While fishing, Matthew’s line became entangled in the outboard motor’s propeller while the engine was running in neutral.
- Matthew wrapped the line around his hand and reached into the water to untangle it; the motor then shifted into reverse and the propeller spun, amputating his hand.
- Matthew’s father sued the motor manufacturer, Outboard Marine Corporation (OMC), on products-liability theories after settling with other defendants.
- After discovery, plaintiff pursued a design-defect theory that the motor should have included a “kill switch” that would have shut off the engine and prevented or reduced the injury.
- Plaintiff’s new expert submitted a brief opinion asserting that a kill switch or propeller guard could have prevented the accident or lessened its severity, but he did not examine the boat or motor, interview witnesses, or perform testing tied to the accident scenario.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court abused its discretion under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert by excluding plaintiff’s design-defect expert testimony as unreliable and speculative.
2. Whether, after exclusion of plaintiff’s sole expert evidence, summary judgment for the manufacturer was proper because plaintiff lacked admissible proof of defect and causation.
3. Whether the manufacturer was required to present its own expert to rebut plaintiff’s expert rather than prevailing through a Daubert challenge.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit affirmed the judgment for OMC.
- The court held the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the expert’s opinions as unreliable under Rule 702 and Daubert.
- The court rejected the argument that OMC needed to offer a counter-expert to obtain exclusion or summary judgment.
- Because the excluded testimony was the only evidence supporting the design-defect theory, the court held summary judgment was appropriate.

## Legal Principles

- Trial courts must act as gatekeepers and admit expert testimony only when it is based on sufficient facts or data, uses reliable methods, and applies those methods reliably to the case.
- Conclusory opinions resting on untested assumptions, without investigation, testing, or case-specific analysis, may be excluded as speculative under Rule 702 and Daubert.
- A defendant may prevail by excluding unreliable expert testimony; Daubert does not require the defendant to produce a competing expert as a condition of exclusion.
- In engineering-based design-defect cases, a plaintiff generally must offer admissible expert evidence on defect and causation; without it, summary judgment is proper for lack of a triable issue.

## Conclusion

The court upheld exclusion of the plaintiff’s design-defect expert for lack of reliable methodology and affirmed summary judgment because the plaintiff, left without admissible expert proof, could not establish that the absence of a kill switch (or similar feature) was a defect or that it caused the injury.


Brooks v. Outboard Marine Corp., 234 F.3d 89 (2d Cir. 2000)