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Mealey's Daubert

  • February 04, 2025

    N.J. Appeals Court Finds Expert In Legal Malpractice Suit Improperly Excluded

    NEWARK, N.J. — A New Jersey trial court erred in excluding a woman’s expert in her legal malpractice suit, an appeals court ruled in reversing the court’s summary judgment award to the law firm and ordering the case remanded for further proceedings.

  • February 03, 2025

    Judge Addresses Exclusion, Summary Judgment Bids In Long-Running RESPA Suit

    FRESNO, Calif. — Under Jan. 31 orders that a judge sitting by designation in California federal court issued, a combined Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. hearing and bench trial on economic harm will be the next development in a long-running Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) class action involving captive reinsurance agreements.

  • February 03, 2025

    Consumers: No Review Of Class Certification Needed In Pet Supplement Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Consumers tell the U.S. Supreme Court that no review of class certification in a case over the label claims on a pet supplement is necessary as courts of appeal agree regarding “the real issue on appeal” and have determined that plaintiffs in a class case may rely on an expert’s not-yet-executed damages model so long as the model is deemed reliable and may be used to calculate classwide damages.

  • January 30, 2025

    Monsanto Seeks Exclusion Of Plaintiffs’ Causation Expert In Roundup Cancer Case

    SAN FRANCISCO — Monsanto Co. on Jan. 29 moved in California federal court to exclude a plaintiffs’ expert in litigation over allegations that the herbicide Roundup causes cancer on grounds that his general causation opinion is inadmissible because he “simply parrots selected epidemiological studies whose conclusions he has not independently analyzed” and because he failed to employ a reliable methodology when reaching his opinion on specific causation.

  • January 29, 2025

    6th Circuit: Experts Wrongly Excluded In Case Alleging Pistol Design Defect

    CINCINNATI — A federal district court properly found that two experts retained by a man who alleges that a defective firearm accidentally fired and the bullet hit his leg cannot opine on causation but erred in excluding their testimony on whether the firearm was defectively designed and whether reasonable alternative designs existed, the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in a split decision, reversing an award of summary judgment.

  • January 28, 2025

    Magistrate:  Expert Can Opine On Financial Impacts Related To Company Acquisition

    CASPER, Wyo. — Companies facing a breach of contract suit that moved to strike an expert from testifying may “clearly disagree with his conclusion” but that is no reason for exclusion under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., a federal magistrate judge in Wyoming ruled.

  • January 28, 2025

    Trial Court Must Reconsider Expert’s Admissibility Through Daubert-Rochkind Hearing

    BALTIMORE — While declining to rule on the admissibility of an expert’s testimony in a medical malpractice suit, a Maryland appeals court ruled that the trial court erred in refusing to reconsider its ruling that excluded his testimony in light of new information and vacated a summary judgment award and remanded the case.

  • January 27, 2025

    Experts Featured In Mealey's Daubert Report

    Entries are ordered in alphabetical order of the expert in each area of expert testimony.  Experts appeared in the January to December 2024 issues of Mealey’s Daubert Report.

  • January 27, 2025

    Oklahoma Supreme Court: Litigant Can’t Subpoena An Expert’s Financial Records

    OKLAHOMA CITY — Although a litigant may discover an expert witness’ compensation on a current lawsuit, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that a party may not subpoena an expert to learn compensation on past cases for the purpose of uncovering potential bias, stating that there are other methods of discovering bias that do not invade a witness’s privacy.

  • January 27, 2025

    No Error In Excluding Experts, Dismissing Claim In Suit Against Driver, Employer

    RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said a district court did not abuse its discretion in barring experts from testifying on the timing of inclement weather that a tractor-trailer driver encountered before a crash or in excluding expert testimony on whether the driver was acting within the standard of care.

  • January 24, 2025

    Bad Faith Case For Handling Of Claim Settles After 2 Experts Are Admitted

    JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A week after a Florida federal court judge ruled that competing experts opining on industry standards for handling a bodily injury claim stemming from a car accident can testify, a woman who sued an insurance company for bad faith for failing to settle the claim notified the court that the parties have reached a settlement.

  • January 24, 2025

    SharkNinja Wins Final Judgment In Faulty Blender Case After Judge Excluded Expert

    INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana federal judge entered final judgment in favor of SharkNinja Operating LLC after finding that an expert retained by a woman who alleges that she was injured by a defective blender was excluded from testifying and the judge granted its motion for summary judgment.

  • January 24, 2025

    Judge Admits Video Expert, Police Practices Experts In Fatal Shooting Case

    TACOMA, Wash. — Forensic video experts who reviewed body camera footage of a fatal shooting during a routine traffic stop can testify in a civil rights case, but they cannot opine on what the footage shows or does not show or testify as to standard police practices, a Washington federal judge ruled in largely denying four motions to exclude testimony from the video experts and each side’s police standards experts.

  • January 23, 2025

    9th Circuit: No Rehearing For Playwright In Copyright Row With Studio

    SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Jan. 22 denied a playwright’s motion for en banc rehearing, standing by its affirmation of a federal judge’s grant of summary judgment in favor of a film studio and related entities the writer accused of copying elements from a stage production she wrote.

  • January 22, 2025

    9th Circuit Finds No Error In Allowing Expert Testimony On Value Of Seized Fentanyl

    PASADENA, Calif. — Expert testimony from a law enforcement officer on the retail value of fentanyl seized during a traffic stop is relevant and not unfairly prejudicial, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Jan. 21, affirming a man’s conviction.

  • January 21, 2025

    Judge Rules On What Experts Can Testify To In Suit Over Prisoner Searches

    CHICAGO — Experts on both sides of a civil rights violation class action over searches of inmates and their cells can opine on the generally accepted correctional practices, but an Illinois federal judge limited testimony that is unsupported by a methodology found reliable under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.

  • January 14, 2025

    Judge Excludes Expert Over AI Fabrications, Denies Injunction Of Deepfake Law

    MINNEAPOLIS — A federal judge in Minnesota entered a judgment declining to enjoin a state law on Jan. 13 after excluding an artificial intelligence expert who inadvertently included AI-fabricated cites in his declaration about misinformation and finding that the lone plaintiff with standing lacked the harm required for a preliminary injunction.

  • January 14, 2025

    Motion To Exclude Testimony Granted In $1M Long-Term Care Insurance Fraud Dispute

    ORLANDO, Fla. — A Florida federal judge granted in part a couple’s motion to exclude expert testimony pursuant to Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Prudential Insurance’s declaratory judgment suit against them seeking to rescind their long-term care (LTC) insurance policies due to the more than $1 million in benefits they allegedly received by purportedly misrepresenting their health and eligibility, finding that some of the testimony by an insurance claims consultant must be excluded because it contains “inadmissible legal conclusions.”

  • January 13, 2025

    Tenn. Federal Judge Allows Expert Witness Testimony In Medical Malpractice Case

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A Tennessee federal judge denied dueling motions to exclude the other party’s causation and standard of care expert witnesses in a medical malpractice case after finding that all four experts meet admissibility standards under state and federal law.

  • January 13, 2025

    U.S. High Court Refuses To Hear Cancer Cluster Appeal

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 13 refused to hear a petition brought by residents whose children were victims of a cancer cluster, which the plaintiffs claimed was caused by soil and groundwater that was contaminated with radiation from a facility owned and operated United Technologies Corp. and Pratt & Whitney Group.

  • January 13, 2025

    After Trial, Judge Finds Disloyalty In ERISA Suit Over Fund Manager’s ESG Efforts

    FORT WORTH, Texas — In a Jan. 10 ruling issued after a bench trial in a class action over environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations and the purported proxy voting activism of investment management firms, a Texas federal judge found that American Airlines Inc. and its employee benefits committee breached their fiduciary duty of loyalty but not their duty of prudence.

  • January 10, 2025

    3rd Circuit Finds Expert On Repressed Memories Wrongly Admitted, Vacates Award

    PHILADELPHIA — A district court’s decision to admit testimony from an expert witness on repressed memories in a suit alleging past child sexual abuse “fell short of the rigor required by” Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in overturning a $1.5 million award for compensatory and punitive damages.

  • January 10, 2025

    Memory Expert, Missing Evidence Central To Delaware Asbestos Case Developments

    WILMINGTON, Del. — A Delaware judge excluded a memory expert in an asbestos pipe case, saying that while a company may challenge testimony, it may not do so through expert opinions because the testimony trespasses on the jury’s role of determining witness credibility.  Meanwhile, the plaintiff in the case moved for an adverse instruction about missing evidence, saying a company “born under the specter of asbestos” should have known that it would face litigation, a move J-M Manufacturing Co. Inc. (JMM) portrayed as a coordinated effort to hamstring its ability to raise a defense.

  • January 09, 2025

    Judge Finds Probiotic Infant Product Patent Claims To Be Invalid

    CHICAGO — A federal judge in Illinois granted summary judgment in favor of a defendant biopharmaceutical company accused of infringing on two patents related to probiotic products for infants, holding that the relevant claims of the patents were anticipated by prior art references.

  • January 07, 2025

    Insurers’ Expert Can Testify On What Did Not Cause Fire, Wash. Federal Judge Says

    SEATTLE — A Washington federal judge on Jan. 6 denied a motion to exclude a forensic electrical engineer retained by two insurance companies in a product liability case who ruled out two possible causes of a fire in a recreational vehicle (RV).