Valley View Farms v. Bos Dairy LLC

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Argued November 14, 2025
Decided August 24, 2026
Before
MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
CANDACE JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge
No. 25-1293
VALLEY VIEW FARMS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
BOS DAIRY LLC, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Indiana, Hammond Division at
Lafayette.
No. 4:22-cv-00083-APR
Andrew P. Rodovich,
Magistrate Judge.
O R D E R
Plaintiff Valley View Farms brought an action for conversion against defendants
Bos Dairy LLC and Herrema Dairy LLC, alleging that the two dairies underreported the
amount of corn silage they harvested from Valley View’s corn fields. After a trial, the
jury returned a unanimous verdict for Bos and Herrema. Valley View appeals, arguing
that the trial judge committed reversible error by permitting three forage harvester
operators employed by the dairies to offer lay testimony estimating the amount of
silage they personally harvested. Instead, Valley View argues, the trial judge should
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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No. 25-1293 Page 2
have excluded the estimates as undisclosed expert testimony under Federal Rule of
Evidence 702. Because even without this testimony Valley View failed to show by a
preponderance of the evidence that Bos and Herrema converted its silage, any error in
admitting this testimony was harmless. Accordingly, we affirm.
I
A. Background and procedural history
Valley View, an Illinois partnership with its principal place of business in Illinois,
leases 710 acres of farmland near Bos Dairy and Herrema Dairy (together, the
“Dairies”), both of which are Indiana limited liability companies located in Indiana. In
January 2022, as part of an arrangement with the Dairies dating back over twenty years,
Valley View contracted to plant corn silage on 250 acres of this land for Bos and 460
acres for Herrema. Corn silage is commonly used as feed for dairy cattle and is
measured by the ton rather than by the bushel. The crop is harvested by chopping and
processing the entire corn plant, including its leaves and stalks.
The parties’ contract put most of the onus of harvesting and reporting on the
Dairies. Under the contract’s terms, the Dairies were required to harvest the silage,
transport the silage to their respective dairy, and weigh the silage on certified scales.
The contract also required that the silage weight be adjusted to 34% dry matter, which
represents the amount of silage remaining after moisture has been removed. The
Dairies would then pay Valley View for the total tons of silage they harvested based on
the market price of corn options set by the Chicago Board of Trade. As part of the 2022
contract, Valley View estimated that the Dairies would harvest eighteen tons of silage
per acre.
Shortly before the harvest began in September 2022, Valley View had Gary
Corning, a crop insurance adjuster, provide an appraisal and estimate of the expected
tonnage yields for each of the fields. Corning sampled and inspected the fields, then
returned an estimate of 26.7 tons per acre for the Bos fields and 27.6 tons per acre for the
Herrema fields. But after the harvest was completed a couple weeks later, the silage
yield the Dairies reported was lower than Corning’s pre-harvest appraisal. Bos reported
an average yield of 18.3 tons per acre, and Herrema reported 16.8 tons per acre.
Using Corning’s pre-harvest appraisal, Valley View alleged that Bos
underreported 2,065 tons of silage valued at $115,929 and Herrema underreported 4,984
tons of silage valued at $279,801. When the parties were unable to resolve the disparity

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No. 25-1293 Page 3
between Valley View’s anticipated harvest and the actual harvest, Valley View filed a
suit for conversion, breach of contract, and unjust enrichment in the Northern District of
Indiana. In its suit, Valley View alleged that the Dairies had diverted and
underreported the amount of silage they harvested from its fields. The Dairies
ultimately moved for summary judgment, which the trial judge granted to the Dairies,
but only on Valley View’s unjust enrichment claim. Valley View later dropped its
breach of contract claim and proceeded to trial solely on its conversion claim.
At the final pretrial conference, a dispute arose over the Dairies’ intent to have
the forage harvester operators—or “chopper operators”—testify about the tons of silage
per acre harvested from the fields during the 2022 harvest. Valley View objected to this
testimony, arguing that it constituted expert testimony and therefore needed to be
subject to the analysis and disclosure requirements of Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2), which the Dairies had not met. The Dairies
pushed back, arguing that the testimony was properly admissible as lay testimony as
defined by Federal Rule of Evidence 701 and therefore no prior disclosure was
necessary. After considering these arguments, the judge ruled on the morning of trial
that the chopper operators could testify to “the facts that they saw during the harvest,
which includes the amount of silage they personally dealt with,” but could not “give an
opinion as to the total amount harvested.”
B. Valley View’s case-in-chief
When trial began, Valley View called five witnesses: Melissa Mercier, the owner
of Valley View; John Adelsperger, Valley View’s farm manager; Gary Corning, the crop
insurance adjuster; Joseph Lauer, a professor of agronomy; and Paul Schmid, an
agronomy consultant who performed soil analysis for Valley View.
None of Valley View’s witnesses offered direct evidence that the Dairies
underreported the silage harvest. On direct examination, Mercier testified that the
relationship between Valley View and the Dairies began around 1998 or 1999.
Recounting the history of the arrangement, Mercier explained that the farms’ physical
proximity benefited both parties because it lowered the cost of transporting the silage
once harvested and made it easier for everyone to keep an eye on the crop. As for the
2022 harvest, Mercier testified that she estimated in that year’s contract that the Dairies
would harvest 18 tons of silage per acre because “18 is generally a good starting point.”
But she did not oversee or participate in the harvesting process. On cross-examination,
Mercier testified that, until 2022, she had never questioned the amount of silage

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No. 25-1293 Page 4
harvested or complained to the Dairies about any issues with their reported harvest.
Nor did she have any idea where the allegedly converted silage was taken or how it
was not accounted for in the weighing and reporting process.
Adelsperger and Schmid testified similarly on cross-examination. Both stated
that they had no facts to support any allegation that the silage from the 2022 harvest
was not transported from the fields to the Dairies or not weighed on the Dairies’ scales.
The testimony of Corning and Lauer continued this trend. Both witnesses
testified that they had no evidence that the Dairies diverted or failed to weigh all the
silage harvested from Valley View’s fields. They also stated that the sampling
methodology Corning used for his appraisal was the industry standard. But on cross-
examination, Corning testified that he did not know if he made it to all the fields, could
not identify where the samples were taken, and took fewer samples than the
methodology required. He also testified that his appraisal was not adjusted to 34% dry
matter that the 2022 contract required and he did not know what his appraisal would
have been had he made that adjustment.
C. The Dairies’ case-in-chief
The Dairies called twenty witnesses, ranging from the owners of the two dairies
to various managers and farmhands that worked at the dairies, each of whom testified
that the harvest was accurately weighed and counted. As foreshadowed during the
pretrial conference, the testimony of the three chopper operators, Steve Miller, Jamie
Andrews, and Bret Weston, yielded several objections from Valley View.
The Dairies called Steve Miller first. Miller testified that he had five years of
experience operating choppers and had chopped between 15,000 and 20,000 acres over
those five years. He further testified that he chopped the entire field for Bos in 2022 and
could “get a sense of what the corn is yielding when actually chopping it” based on the
ground speed of the chopper, the height of the corn, and the quality of the soil. After
laying this foundation, counsel for the Dairies asked Miller to estimate the tonnage of
silage that was yielded from the fields based on the speed he was able to drive in the
fields and his observation of the corn. Over Valley View’s objection, Miller estimated
that the amount of silage harvested “was anywhere from 15 to 18 ton[s] to the acre,” an
amount that was consistent with his prior years harvesting corn from Valley View’s
farms.
The Dairies then called Jamie Andrews. Andrews had eleven years of experience

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No. 25-1293 Page 5
harvesting corn and other crops, had chopped approximately 100,000 acres of crops
during this time, and had frequently chopped the Valley View fields. As he did with
Miller, counsel for the Dairies asked Andrews to provide an estimate of the silage yield
from the fields he chopped based on the height of the corn and the speed of the
chopper. Valley View once again objected, this time arguing that the question elicited
an expert opinion in violation of the judge’s prior ruling. The judge disagreed and
allowed the question, finding that the testimony constituted a lay opinion. Andrews
then testified that the silage yield from the field that he chopped was in “the 15 to 18
[ton] range,” which was consistent with the overall average from the past ten years. On
cross-examination, Valley View asked Andrews whether his ability to understand the
appearance of the corn and calculate the amount of corn harvested per acre required
“pretty specialized knowledge” that only a chopper operator had. Andrews answered
“Yes.”
The Dairies then called Bret Weston, who had fifteen years of chopping
experience and 70,000 acres chopped. Like the previous choppers, and over Valley
View’s objection, Weston testified that he probably chopped 15 to 16 tons of silage per
acre during the 2022 harvest. On cross-examination, Valley View had the same colloquy
with Weston as it had with Andrews that producing this estimate required “a
specialized area of knowledge.”
After three and a half days of trial, the jury returned a unanimous verdict in
favor of the Dairies.
II
Valley View’s appeal presents two questions: did the trial judge err in permitting
the chopper operators to estimate the tons of silage per acre they harvested as Rule 701
lay testimony instead of excluding the estimations as undisclosed Rule 702 expert
testimony? And if so, did the error prejudice Valley View such that it is entitled to a
new trial?
As for the first question, we review a district court’s decision to admit or exclude
expert testimony for abuse of discretion. Compania Administradora de Recuperacion de
Activos Administradora de Fondos de Inversion Sociedad Anonima v. Titan Int’l, Inc., 533 F.3d
555, 559 (7th Cir. 2008) (hereinafter Titan). But when the district court’s classification of
a witness as lay or expert is based on an interpretation of the Federal Rules of Evidence,
we review that legal interpretation de novo. Id.

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That said, “[e]ven if an expert’s testimony was erroneously admitted or
excluded, reversal is not warranted unless the error has affected a party’s ‘substantial
rights.’” Hall v. Flannery, 840 F.3d 922, 926 (7th Cir. 2016) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 61).
Held to this standard, evidentiary errors warrant a new trial “only if the error had a
substantial and injurious effect or influence on the jury’s decision.” Anderson v. Raymond
Corp., 61 F.4th 505, 508 (7th Cir. 2023); id. at 511 (citing Hall, 840 F.3d at 926–27).
Valley View argues the admission of the chopper operators’ testimony was both
erroneous and prejudicial. Rule 701 limits lay witness testimony offered in the form of
an opinion to testimony that is “not based on scientific, technical, or other specialized
knowledge.” Pointing to this language, Valley View contends that the chopper
operators’ opinions on the total tons per acre of silage harvested were not admissible
under Rule 701 because the opinions were based on their “specialized knowledge” as
harvester operators. From there, Valley View argues the Dairies had an obligation
under Rule 702 and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2) to disclose and qualify the
chopper operators as experts. Since the Dairies did not, Valley View continues, the
judge abused his discretion in admitting the chopper operators’ expert opinions. In
Valley View’s eyes, this evidentiary error entitles it to a new trial because the chopper
operators’ opinions were the only firsthand “tons per acre” evidence the Dairies
presented to rebut Corning’s appraisal and Lauer’s expert opinion testimony. As Valley
View urges in its brief, the chopper operators’ testimony “certainly could have affected
the jury’s decision in favor of the Dairies.”
The Dairies argue the opposite. In their telling, the basis for the chopper
operators’ opinions was “their personal experience and observations,” not specialized
knowledge. Therefore, the Dairies maintain, the opinions were properly admitted as lay
testimony under Rule 701. And even if the trial judge erred, the Dairies argue on
appeal, the error was “simply harmless, evidenced by each of Valley View’s witnesses
testifying that they had no evidence of the claims submitted.”
To Valley View’s credit, the chopper operators’ silage-yield opinions toe the fine
line between lay and expert testimony. See, e.g., Von der Ruhr v. Immtech Int’l, Inc., 570
F.3d 858, 862–63 (7th Cir. 2009) (explaining development and scope of Rule 701); Titan,
533 F.3d at 560–61 (same). But we need not decide this question. For even if the judge
erred in admitting the chopper operators’ testimony, the error was harmless in the face
of Valley View’s failure to provide evidence of conversion by the Dairies.

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We look to Indiana law on conversion because this case came to the federal court
sitting in Indiana based on diversity jurisdiction. Deckard v. Gen. Motors Corp., 307 F.3d
556, 560 (7th Cir. 2002). Under Indiana law, criminal conversion occurs when a person
“knowingly or intentionally exerts unauthorized control over property of another
person.” Ind. Code § 35-43-4-3. In Indiana, a party may bring a civil suit to recover
monetary losses due to criminal conversion. JET Credit Union v. Loudermilk, 879 N.E.2d
594, 597 (Ind. Ct. App. 2008). But unlike in the criminal context, to prevail, a party “need
prove by only a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant committed the
criminal act.” Id.
The evidence Valley View presented at trial leaves us well short of the “firm
conviction” needed to find that any erroneous admission of the chopper operators’
testimony “could have affected the jury’s decision” to find in favor of the Dairies.
Anderson, 61 F.4th at 511. As Valley View conceded during oral argument, none of its
witnesses were able to testify that the Dairies underreported the amount of silage they
harvested or offer any other direct evidence of conversion. Instead, Valley View’s case
relied almost entirely on Corning’s preharvest appraisal as circumstantial evidence of
conversion. Yet the credibility of that appraisal was heavily called into question during
cross-examination. Further, removing the chopper operators’ testimony on the average
tons per acre of silage they thought they harvested leaves the jury with the Dairies’
seventeen other witnesses, all of whom testified that there was no impropriety during
the 2022 harvest. As such, there is little chance that the chopper operators’ opinions
affected the outcome of the trial. This low probability renders harmless the judge’s
decision to admit the chopper operators’ opinions as lay testimony.
AFFIRMED.

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