## Facts

- Mark Waldorf suffered catastrophic injuries in a 1982 motor-vehicle accident, including a C6–C7 spinal fracture/dislocation with spinal cord transection, resulting in quadriplegia.
- Waldorf sued multiple defendants, including a municipality and individual parties, seeking damages for personal injuries.
- After earlier appellate proceedings, the district court conducted a second trial limited to damages.
- At the second damages trial, a defendant offered Dennis Rizzo to testify as a vocational rehabilitation expert regarding jobs and earning capacity available to a person with Waldorf’s limitations.
- Rizzo held a master’s degree in sociology/social organization and lacked formal vocational-rehabilitation credentials, but had experience evaluating employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
- Rizzo relied on New Jersey Department of Labor statistics and job-listing materials to identify job categories and wages he considered potentially available to quadriplegics.
- Over Waldorf’s objection, the district court qualified Rizzo as an expert and admitted his testimony.
- The jury returned a substantial damages verdict for Waldorf; the district court denied Waldorf’s post-trial motion for a new trial challenging, among other things, the expert ruling.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court abused its discretion under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 by qualifying Rizzo as a vocational rehabilitation expert despite his lack of formal training in that specialty.
2. Whether Rizzo’s opinions met Rule 702 and *Daubert* reliability requirements given his reliance on labor statistics and job-listing data.
3. Whether any asserted evidentiary or instructional error required a new damages trial or other relief from the judgment.

## Decision

- The Third Circuit affirmed the judgment from the second damages trial.
- The court held the district court did not abuse its discretion in qualifying Rizzo as an expert and admitting his vocational testimony.
- The court concluded Rizzo’s experience-based testimony and use of labor-market data provided a sufficiently reliable and relevant foundation under Rule 702/*Daubert*.
- The court found the damages verdict was supported by the record and that alleged trial errors did not warrant another new trial.

## Legal Principles

- Expert qualification under Rule 702 is flexible; a witness may be qualified through knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, and a specific degree is not required.
- Appellate review of expert-admissibility rulings is for abuse of discretion; reversal requires a showing the ruling was arbitrary, fanciful, or irrational.
- Under *Daubert* and Rule 702, expert testimony must be relevant and rest on a reliable foundation, but disputes about limitations in credentials or methodology generally go to weight, not admissibility, and are tested through cross-examination and competing proof.
- Vocational opinions based on recognized labor-market sources (such as government statistics and job listings), coupled with relevant experience applying those sources to disability-related work capacity, may satisfy Rule 702 reliability thresholds.

## Conclusion

The Third Circuit upheld the district court’s admission of a defense vocational expert’s experience-based testimony grounded in labor-market data, and it affirmed the post-remand damages judgment because the expert ruling fell within the trial court’s discretion and the verdict remained supported by the evidence.


Waldorf v. Shuta, 142 F.3d 601 (3d Cir. 1998)