Defendants and appellants Reginald Mason and Shante Mason (“Defendants”) appeal a $700,000.00 judgment in favor of Plaintiff and respondent Kelly Angela Bell (“Plaintiff”) following a jury trial, as well as a post judgment order awarding Plaintiff $204,500.00 in attorney’s fees. 

Plaintiff sold her home to the Defendants for $130,000.00.  Plaintiff then sued Defendants alleging that Defendants took advantage of her mental retardation in gaining her trust and inducing her to enter into a transaction which deprived her of her home.

The defense theory is that Plaintiff is of normal intelligence and she knowingly entered into an arm’s length transaction for the sale of her property.  At trial, Defendants sought to call Dr. Samuel Black (“Black”) as an expert psychiatric witness to testify Plaintiff is not mentally retarded and that she was of average intelligence.   The trial court ruled Black could not testify regarding any issue pertaining to Plaintiff’s mental retardation because Black had not met or personally examined Plaintiff and that Defendants failed to lay a sufficient foundation for Black to testify (despite Black reviewing Plaintiff’s medical records, other expert reports and over 15 hours of Plaintiff’s videotaped deposition testimony).

The trial court committed prejudicial evidentiary error in precluding defense expert Black from testifying regarding Plaintiff’s mental competence.  The fact that Black did not personally examine Plaintiff did not affect the admissibility of the evidence but merely went to the weight of Black’s testimony.

Various case law authorities have held that an expert’s testimony based in large part on reports by others rather than upon the expert’s own personal observations or of other persons displaying the syndrome may affect the weight of his testimony but does not render the testimony inadmissible if those reports meet the standard of reasonable reliability.  [People v. Brekke (1967) 250 Cal.App.2d  651, 661-662, People v. Phillips (1981) 122 Cal.App.3d 69, 85].

Reversal of the trial court’s ruling due to prejudicial evidentiary error.