Sims v. Safeway Trails, Inc

In Sims v. Safeway Trails, Inc., 297 Ark. 588, 764 S.W.2d 427 (Ark. 1989), the appellate court affirmed the trial court's exclusion of an expert's testimony relaying what his investigator had told him concerning the condition of a vehicle's brakes as hearsay. The court noted that normally the inquiry into the admissibility of this type of evidence would not stop at the conclusion that the proposed testimony is hearsay because Rule 703 allows an expert to rely on facts not admissible in evidence, but in the case at bar no further inquiry was necessary because the data was not relevant to any opinion expressed by the expert in explaining how the mishap occurred. "The expert did not purport to have an opinion as to how the collision occurred which was even remotely related to the condition of the bus's brakes." Sims, 764 S.W.2d at 429.