Est. of William Han Manstrom-Greening v. Lane County, 22-35340

Estate of William Han Manstrom-Greening sued Glenn Greening (a Lane County officer), Lane County, and Donovan Dumire (county parole & probation manager) for negligence after William died by suicide with Greening’s service firearm allegedly stored at home.
A jury returned a defense verdict; the Estate appealed only the district court’s evidentiary rulings at trial.
The district court excluded portions of the Estate’s expert psychologist Dr. Glenn Lipson’s proposed testimony (national/regional suicide statistics, the ‘‘weapons effect,’’ and effectiveness of safety devices) as irrelevant or within lay juror knowledge.
The court also sustained objections to questions to former Officer Richard Bremer about suicide counts, firearm suicides, local suicide rates, and his training; and declined to take judicial notice of proffered suicide statistics.
The district court limited arguments invoking the jury as the "conscience of the community" or urging broader community standards for firearm storage, while permitting argument assessing defendants’ conduct from a reasonable-community perspective.
The Ninth Circuit reviewed for abuse of discretion, held the evidentiary rulings were not an abuse (and any error was harmless because disputed material was cumulative of other admitted evidence), and affirmed.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Exclusion of expert testimony (statistics on suicide rates and risk factors)	Lipson’s stats would make foreseeability/causation more likely	Stats were not tied to the specific negligence elements here and thus irrelevant	Affirmed: district court did not abuse discretion; even if error, harmless because evidence was cumulative
Exclusion of expert testimony (weapons effect and role of safety devices/impulsivity)	Lipson would explain how firearm presence and lack of safety devices increase suicide risk	Jurors can understand impulsivity and safe-storage concepts without expert help; testimony not beyond common knowledge	Affirmed: district court acted within discretion; any error harmless given other trial arguments/evidence (notes showing deliberation)
Exclusion of Officer Bremer’s questions on suicide counts and training	Bremer’s experience/statistics and training would support foreseeability and risk from firearm access	Prevalence of other suicides and Bremer’s training are not relevant to defendants’ foreseeability; testimony cumulative	Affirmed: exclusion not an abuse; if error, harmless/cumulative
Denial of judicial notice for regional suicide/firearm statistics	Judicial notice of public statistics should be taken and admitted	Statistics were not relevant to negligence elements here; judicial notice unnecessary	Affirmed: district court within discretion; statistics irrelevant to specific negligence claim and cumulative if admitted

Barranco v. 3D Sys. Corp., 952 F.3d 1122 (9th Cir. 2020) (abuse-of-discretion review for evidentiary rulings)
Boyd v. City & Cnty. of San Francisco, 576 F.3d 938 (9th Cir. 2009) (presumption of prejudice and harmless-error standard when evidentiary error shown)
Primiano v. Cook, 598 F.3d 558 (9th Cir. 2010) (federal law governs admissibility of evidence in federal court)
Messick v. Novartis Pharms. Corp., 747 F.3d 1193 (9th Cir. 2014) (district court discretion in determining materiality/relevance)
Finley, 301 F.3d 1000 (9th Cir. 2002) (expert testimony must offer knowledge beyond common juror understanding)
Theme Promotions, Inc. v. News Am. Mktg. FSI, 546 F.3d 991 (9th Cir. 2008) (harmless error where excluded evidence is cumulative)
Khoja v. Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc., 899 F.3d 988 (9th Cir. 2018) (review of judicial-notice determinations)
Lopez v. Allen, 47 F.4th 1040 (9th Cir. 2022) (recognizing some behavioral facts are within common juror knowledge)
United States v. Gray, 876 F.2d 1411 (9th Cir. 1989) (limits on appeals to jury as community conscience)
Fazzolari v. Portland Sch. Dist. No. 1J, 734 P.2d 1326 (Or. 1987) (negligence assessed from standpoint of reasonable community member)