Richard

INTRODUCTION

Terrence Richard fell from a train and broke his leg while working as a brakeman for Union Pacific Railroad Company (Union Pacific). Richard sued Union Pacific for negligence under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) (45 U.S.C. § 51 et seq.). A jury returned a special verdict for Union Pacific, finding the company was not negligent. On appeal, Richard contends the trial court erred by granting Union Pacific’s motion in limine to exclude the testimony of Richard’s retained expert, Richard Hess. Hess is a retired Union Pacific railroad engineer who had worked for the last 15 years of his career on the track where Richard was injured. Hess would have testified that when starting a very long train on that track, it is necessary to engage the throttle and release the brakes simultaneously to avoid excessive “slack action” at the rear of the train. “Slack action” is the movement of the expandable and retractable coupling spaces between a train’s railcars. The length of the train increases the slack, and the amount of slack action affects the severity of the shock of train movements. Hess further would have testified that immediately before Richard’s accident, the…