Summary
The United States District Court for the District of Connecticut denied defendants’ motion to preclude the testimony and opinions of survey expert Dr. Jessica Broome. The court held that the survey’s questions, sponsor disclosure, backward-navigation feature, and target population were consistent with reliable survey methodology under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert. The court concluded that the defendants’ challenges primarily went to the weight rather than the admissibility of the survey evidence.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether Dr. Broome's survey testimony should be excluded under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 because Question A1 was allegedly misleading or ambiguous.
- Whether disclosure of the FTC as survey sponsor rendered the survey methodology unreliable.
- Whether permitting respondents to navigate backward and change prior answers rendered the survey unreliable.
- Whether the survey population was impermissibly underinclusive because it excluded customers who were not charged for add-ons.
- Whether the asserted methodological flaws required exclusion of the survey testimony rather than affecting the weight of the evidence.
Holdings
- The alleged ambiguity in Question A1 did not make Dr. Broome's survey inadmissible under Rule 702. Cognitive pretesting and multiple probes supported the conclusion that respondents understood the question as intended, and any minor ambiguity went to the weight of the evidence rather than admissibility.
- Disclosure of the FTC as the survey sponsor did not render Dr. Broome's survey unreliable where the survey invitation did not reference the litigation's specific purpose, presented a randomized list of local dealerships, and otherwise used steps to conceal the survey's particular litigation objective.
- Permitting respondents to navigate backward and revise answers did not establish that Dr. Broome's survey was unreliable or require exclusion of her testimony.
- The survey was not unreliable merely because it targeted customers who had been charged for at least one add-on and excluded customers who had not been charged for an add-on.
- Defendants' challenges to the survey methodology did not warrant preclusion because the survey used reliable methodology and defendants failed to establish that the challenged features made the testimony inadmissible.
Key quotations
“The District Court acts as a gatekeeper, charged with the task of deciding whether the expert's testimony satisfies Rule 702’s general requirements.” (Part III)
“Dr. Broome’s survey is designed with methodology consistent with the Reference Guide on Survey Research and legal precedent regarding FTC surveys.” (Part IV)
Factual background
The FTC and Connecticut alleged that Chase Nissan and related defendants charged consumers for vehicle add-on products or services without consent or represented that allegedly purchased add-ons were required rather than optional. Plaintiffs retained Dr. Jessica Broome to conduct a customer-experience survey of adults who purchased vehicles and add-ons from Manchester City Nissan between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2023. The survey used cognitive pretesting, disclosed the FTC as sponsor while attempting to conceal the litigation's specific purpose, permitted backward navigation, and surveyed a population drawn from customers charged for at least one add-on.
Procedural history
The Federal Trade Commission and State of Connecticut sued Chase Nissan LLC and related individual defendants, alleging unlawful charges for vehicle add-on products and services. During the district-court litigation, defendants moved to preclude Dr. Broome's survey testimony. After briefing by the parties, the court denied the motion.