Relying on the conclusion of a plaintiff’s expert, even though it contradicted the injured plaintiff’s memory of firing a revolver and had been excluded at trial, a divided federal appeals panel reversed a lower court’s dismissal of a product liability case against Smith & Wesson Corp.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, voting 2-1, found that mechanical engineering expert and plaintiff’s witness Roy Ruel’s analysis of the alleged misfiring of plaintiff Mark Lee’s 460XVR revolver should have been admitted and, in fact, deemed more reliable than Lee’s recollection of the accident that damaged his right eye.
