Countryside Corp. v. Taylor, 263 Va. 549

Summary

The Supreme Court of Virginia held that an expert's damages opinion in a breach-of-contract action was speculative and inadmissible because it relied on the erroneous assumption that the plaintiffs did not own a strip of land conveyed to them after the alleged breach. Without the expert testimony, the plaintiffs failed to establish damages. The court reversed the judgment for the plaintiffs and entered final judgment for the defendant.

Holdings

1. Expert testimony is inadmissible when it is speculative, rests on assumptions having no basis in fact, or fails to consider material variables bearing on the inferences drawn from the facts. The damages expert's testimony was speculative and unreliable as a matter of law because it ignored the Taylors' acquisition of the strip of land and was based on the fiction that they did not own it.
2. Without the expert's damages testimony, the Taylors failed to prove damages resulting from Countryside's breach of contract.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the trial court erred by refusing to strike the plaintiff's damages expert testimony because the opinion was speculative and based on an erroneous factual foundation.
2. Whether the Taylors presented sufficient evidence of damages from Countryside's breach of contract after the expert testimony was excluded as unreliable.

Disposition

reversed