## Facts

- Carmelita Elcock suffered a slip-and-fall in a Kmart store in Frederiksted, U.S. Virgin Islands.
- Kmart conceded liability, leaving the case to turn on the nature and amount of damages.
- Elcock sought damages for pain and suffering and for loss of future earnings/earning capacity.
- Elcock presented Dr. Chester Copemann, a psychologist offered as a vocational rehabilitation expert, whose employability opinions substantially informed the claim for future economic loss.
- Elcock also presented Dr. Bernard Pettingill, an economist, who calculated future economic loss using assumptions drawn from vocational opinions and other inputs.
- The jury awarded $650,000: $300,000 for pain and suffering and $350,000 for loss of future earnings and earning capacity.
- Kmart appealed, challenging the admission of the vocational and economic expert testimony and arguing that the damages were excessive.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court erred under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert by admitting the vocational expert testimony without first holding a reliability hearing where the testimony was central to a large economic-damages claim.
2. Whether the district court abused its discretion in qualifying the vocational witness as an expert and in limiting cross-examination regarding prior criminal misconduct.
3. Whether the district court erred by admitting the economist’s damages model when it relied on assumptions not supported by the trial record.
4. Whether the economic component of the verdict had to be set aside and retried given the challenged evidentiary rulings.

## Decision

- The court held the district court should have conducted a Daubert reliability inquiry before receiving the vocational expert testimony; because no such hearing occurred, that testimony could not stand.
- The court found no abuse of discretion in qualifying the vocational witness as an expert or in limiting cross-examination about prior criminal misconduct.
- The court held the economist’s testimony should have been excluded because his model relied on assumptions wholly without foundation in the record.
- The court vacated the economic loss portion of the verdict and remanded for a new trial on economic damages because the award depended on inadmissible expert evidence and other witnesses could not supply an adequate substitute foundation.

## Legal Principles

- Under Rule 702 and Daubert, trial courts must act as gatekeepers to ensure expert testimony is reliable; when expert opinions are central to substantial damages, the court must create a reliability record, often requiring a Daubert hearing.
- Expert qualification does not resolve admissibility; the court must separately assess whether the expert’s methodology and assumptions are reliable and appropriately applied to the facts.
- An economic damages expert must ground key assumptions in record evidence; projections based on unsupported premises are inadmissible.
- When a damages award rests on inadmissible expert testimony and cannot be supported by other competent evidence, the proper remedy is to set aside the affected portion of the verdict and order a new trial limited to that damages component.

## Conclusion

The Third Circuit held that the district court failed to perform its Rule 702/Daubert gatekeeping function for vocational testimony central to future economic loss and that the economist’s model lacked record support; it therefore vacated the economic damages award and remanded for a new trial on economic loss, while upholding the expert’s qualification and the trial court’s limits on impeachment.


Elcock v. Kmart Corp., 233 F.3d 734 (3d Cir. 2000)