{"id":901969,"date":"2023-12-06T14:32:44","date_gmt":"2023-12-06T21:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=901969"},"modified":"2023-12-06T14:32:47","modified_gmt":"2023-12-06T21:32:47","slug":"expert-opinion-court-strikes-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/expert-opinion-court-strikes-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Strikes Expert Opinion that Surety Acted as a &#8220;De Facto Contractor&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>David Adelstein | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.floridaconstructionlegalupdates.com\/court-strikes-expert-opinion-that-surety-acted-as-a-de-facto-contractor\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Florida Construction Legal Updates<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Designating and admitting\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.adviseandconsult.net\/experts.php\">experts<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0is a vital component of any construction dispute.\u00a0 Many construction disputes require experts.\u00a0 Many construction disputes can only be won with the role of an expert. Thus, experts and construction disputes go hand-in-hand. No doubt about it! \u00a0Time needs to be spent on developing the right expert opinions to support your burden of proof. This means you want to designate the right expert that can credibly and reliably render an expert opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is common for one party to move to&nbsp;<strong>strike the testimony and expert opinions<\/strong>&nbsp;of another party. This is referred to as a&nbsp;<strong><em>Daubert<\/em>&nbsp;motion<\/strong>. Sometimes the motion is about gamesmanship. Sometimes it is to see how the judge rules on the issue. Sometimes there is a legitimate reason associated with the expert opinion. And, sometimes, it is a combination of the above. Regardless of the reason, parties know the weight expert opinions can have and, therefore, treat the opinions seriously prompting the&nbsp;<em>Daubert<\/em>&nbsp;motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A recent opinion out of the Southern District of Florida,&nbsp;<em>Berkley Insurance Co. v. Suffolk Construction Co<\/em>., 2023 WL 7010001 (S.D.Fla.2023), deals with the trial court striking a portion of a general contractor\u2019s expert opinion. The dispute involved a general contractor and a subcontractor and subcontractor\u2019s performance bond surety. The general contractor refused to pay the subcontractor and the subcontractor\u2019s performance bond surety, in furtherance of mitigating damages, funded the subcontractor\u2019s continued performance. The surety then sued the general contractor to recover losses and the non-payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the expert opinions the general contractor offered was that the subcontractor\u2019s performance bond surety acted as a \u201c<strong>de factor subcontractor<\/strong>.\u201d This opinion was based off the surety \u201crequesting all payment for [the subcontractor], from [the surety\u2019s] agents\u2019 presence at onsite meetings on the project, and from its decisions mandating certain manpower and other resources to be applied to the project after [the subcontractor] breached. [The surety] exercised complete control over [the subcontractor] to such extent that [the surety] became a \u2018de factor subcontractor.\u2019\u201d<em>&nbsp;Berkley Ins. Co<\/em>., 2023 WL at *8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The trial court, however, was not buying this expert opinion. At all. \u201c<strong>Remarkably, however, [the expert] has never before attempted to develop the theory he advances of a surety becoming a \u2018de facto contractor.\u2019 His \u2018customized\u2019 expertise was allegedly generated to advocate for the specific legal arguments of counsel but without any objectively verifiable basis\u2026<\/strong>.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<em>Berkley Ins. Co<\/em>.,&nbsp;<em>supra<\/em>, at *8. &nbsp;The trial court further explained:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>An expert must show how his experience leads to the conclusion reached and why that experience is a sufficient basis for the opinion. But in this Report, [the expert] claims that a surety may become a \u201cde facto contractor\u201d even though he admitted that, in his entire career, there had not been one time where he had experience evaluating a surety as being a \u201cde facto contractor.\u201d Furthermore, [the expert] states that he has never seen, known, or even heard about a \u201cde facto contractor\u201d before this case. And as we stated before, he has no experience acting as a surety in any meaningful way.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>To admit this opinion under Rule 702 [of the Federal Rules of Evidence] we must find there to be some showing of how his experience led to or reliably supported his conclusions. While [the expert] conveyed that he reviews industry standards and articles \u201cevery day, it\u2019s just a normal course of my \u2026 daily routine\u201d, he cannot cite a single industry standard or article that he has seen in his entire career that discusses the \u201cde facto contractor\u201d theory. With no experience to point to and no industry recognition of the \u201cde facto contractor\u201d theory,&nbsp;<u>there is no link between his experience and his opinion<\/u>&nbsp;besides \u201cI think it\u2019s just something that is understood in the industry.\u201d [The expert] failed to show how his experience may render a reliable opinion before the trier of fact and nothing in our review of this record can save him on this score.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>***<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>So, in short, we have an \u201cexpert opinion\u201d that effectively clothes [the general contractor\u2019s] legal conclusions that will be presented in the case. The facts supporting that legal conclusion can be, and certainly will be, presented at trial through testimony of fact witnesses with personal knowledge. To bolster that testimony with an expert opinion, [the general contractor] must present a witness with experience as a surety (which [the expert] does not have) or with practical experience of a contractor who has faced that dilemma (which [the expert] admits he also does not have). So the Court on this record has zero basis to find, preliminarily or otherwise, that a reliable expert opinion can be forthcoming through this expert. As to this \u201cde facto subcontractor\u201d opinion, he is&nbsp;<em>not<\/em>&nbsp;an expert at all. Hence, his testimony in this regard must be excluded.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Berkley Ins. Co., supra<\/em>, at *8-*9 (internal citations omitted).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When one of your cases is in need of a construction expert, estimates, insurance appraisal or umpire services in defect or insurance disputes &#8211; please call Advise &amp; Consult, Inc. at 888.684.8305, or email <a href=\"mailto:experts@adviseandconsult.net\">experts@adviseandconsult.net<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Adelstein | Florida Construction Legal Updates Designating and admitting\u00a0experts\u00a0is a vital component of any construction dispute.\u00a0 Many construction disputes require experts.\u00a0 Many construction disputes can only be won with the role of an expert. Thus, experts and construction disputes go hand-in-hand. No doubt about it! \u00a0Time needs to be spent on developing the right&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/expert-opinion-court-strikes-down\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Court Strikes Expert Opinion that Surety Acted as a &#8220;De Facto Contractor&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[9895,920],"class_list":["post-901969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-expert-witness","tag-advise-consult","tag-expert-witnesses","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Court Strikes Expert Opinion that Surety Acted as a &quot;De Facto Contractor&quot; - Advise &amp; Consult, Inc.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Many construction disputes can only be won with the role of an expert. 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