Krause Inc. and Home Depot U.S.A., Inc. v. Don Little, 117 Nev. 929

Summary

The Supreme Court of Nevada affirmed a judgment for a plaintiff injured when a Krause Multimatic ladder collapsed. The court held that jurors may reenact an expert's experiment using admitted evidence when the reenactment is consistent with the trial evidence, and that expert testimony is not required for future pain-and-suffering damages arising from a broken bone. The court also addressed expert-witness qualification, admission of the ladder and evidence of similar accidents, and proof of a manufacturing defect.

Holdings

1. Nevada retains its existing NRS 50.275 abuse-of-discretion standard for admitting expert testimony and does not adopt the Daubert standard.
2. The district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting the accident ladder because testing-related damage did not eliminate its probative value and the claimed prejudice was not unfair prejudice.
3. Jurors may use admitted evidence to reenact an expert's experiment performed or described at trial when the reenactment is consistent with that experiment; doing so does not introduce extrinsic evidence.
4. The district court's instructions to disregard the Eggers and Bloomquist depositions cured any resulting error or prejudice, so denial of a new trial was not an abuse of discretion.
5. Expert testimony is not always required to establish a manufacturing defect; an unexpected and dangerous malfunction may support an inference of defect through circumstantial evidence.
6. A broken bone is an objective injury, and a plaintiff need not present expert testimony regarding future pain and suffering before the court instructs the jury on future damages.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the district court abused its discretion by permitting Manning to testify as an expert without adopting the Daubert standard.
2. Whether the accident ladder was properly admitted despite alleged damage caused by the expert's testing.
3. Whether jurors may use admitted evidence to reenact an expert's trial experiment during deliberations.
4. Whether curative instructions adequately remedied the erroneous presentation of two depositions concerning dissimilar accidents.
5. Whether expert testimony was required to support a manufacturing-defect instruction.
6. Whether expert testimony was required before the jury could be instructed on future pain-and-suffering damages for a broken bone.

Disposition

affirmed