-
March 13, 2025
LAS CRUCES, N.M. — A New Mexico federal judge limited the testimony from an expert on police practices and an expert on medical care who were retained by a man alleging that he was injured in a police shootout, finding that certain portions of their proposed testimony were inadmissible under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.
-
March 12, 2025
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A psychiatric expert retained by parents suing school districts and others after their visually impaired children were sexually abused can testify, a Michigan federal judge ruled, but she limited his testimony in the cases that were consolidated for pretrial purposes.
-
March 07, 2025
DENVER — A representative of an estate’s named experts in a suit against a skilled nursing facility failed to show that the facility’s actions caused one of its residents to fall, the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held, affirming a district court’s summary judgment award and ruling that the court did not err in failing to hold a hearing to consider the experts’ admissibility under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.
-
March 06, 2025
ORLANDO, Fla. — A life-care planner can testify for a man who alleges that he was severely injured by a defective air bag, a Florida federal judge found March 5, rejecting arguments that his testimony should be excluded as duplicative of the man’s treating physicians.
-
March 06, 2025
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Tennessee federal magistrate judge largely denied two motions to exclude expert testimony presented on behalf of a man who says he is unable to work after falling at a restaurant after finding that experts meet the admissibility standards set in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Federal Rule of Evidence 702.
-
March 06, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 3 denied a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the makers of Cosequin, a pet supplement, who asked the justices to consider whether expert testimony relied on to support a motion for class certification must satisfy the requirements for admissibility.
-
March 06, 2025
ST. LOUIS — A Missouri federal judge denied three motions to exclude expert testimony in a case involving the effects of herbicides on a beekeeping and honey-producing operation and partially granted a fourth motion, finding that an expert cannot speculate on causation or answer questions on a hypothetical situation.
-
March 05, 2025
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The treating physicians of a man who alleges that he was injured in a car accident may testify on his treatment, prognosis and future treatment, a New Mexico federal magistrate judge ruled in denying two motions to exclude their testimony.
-
March 03, 2025
BOSTON — Nine years after a jury convicted Philip Chism for the rape and murder of his teacher, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court denied his quest for a reduced sentence and a new trial, upholding most of a trial court’s discovery and expert witness rulings and finding that any errors that occurred were not prejudicial to Chism.
-
February 27, 2025
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — An expert may testify on “the 81 interrogation tactics” that a man charged with second-degree murder encountered “before ultimately making inculpatory statements,” a New Mexico federal judge said Feb. 26 in rejecting the federal government’s motion to exclude.
-
February 27, 2025
SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge certified a class of California residents accusing a consumer loan app operator of concealing certain fees while operating as an unlicensed lender in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and California finance laws, denied the app operator’s motion to exclude a plaintiffs’ witness and granted in part the defendant’s motion for summary judgment as to claims regarding its performance fees.
-
February 26, 2025
CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that expert testimony on causation is not needed in a complex design defect case “misapprehended Kentucky law,” a gun manufacturer argues in a Feb. 25 petition for an en banc rehearing of a recent split decision that found that while a district court properly excluded expert testimony on causation, it erred in excluding design defect testimony and reversed an award of summary judgment.
-
February 25, 2025
SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Feb. 24 affirmed the convictions, sentences and restitution orders against Theranos Inc. founder Elizabeth Holmes and former Theranos Chief Operating Officer Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, finding no error in multiple decisions by the trial court that the pair raised as arguments on appeal.
-
February 25, 2025
Entries are ordered in alphabetical order of the expert in each area of expert testimony. Experts appeared in the January and February 2025 issues of Mealey’s Daubert Report.
-
February 25, 2025
ORLANDO, Fla. — An expert testifying on behalf of a timeshare company can testify that class certification is unnecessary for military members who allege that the timeshare contract violated the law, but the expert retained by those miliary members is barred because his report was untimely, a Florida federal judge ruled, also denying the motion for class certification.
-
February 25, 2025
JACKSON, Tenn. — A Tennessee trial court failed to show that a woman’s violation of a discovery order “was contumacious, intentional, blatant, or otherwise so egregious as to justify the harshest sanction available, i.e., exclusion of [her] expert and dismissal of her lawsuit,” a state appeals court held, reversing the exclusion of the witness and award of summary judgment.
-
February 24, 2025
EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — An Illinois federal judge on Feb. 23 found that two experts retained by a law firm in an insurer’s suit over alleged legal malpractice cannot testify because their conclusions and opinions are not reliable under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.
-
February 24, 2025
ST. LOUIS — A Missouri federal judge denied dueling motions to exclude experts retained in an unfair competition suit involving electronic slot machines, but he noted that many of the objections were rendered moot following concessions made during a hearing to determine the admissibility of the experts under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.
-
February 21, 2025
WILMINGTON, Del. — A Delaware police detective can testify as a drug dealing expert in an upcoming criminal trial, a Delaware state court judge ruled, rejecting arguments that his testimony fails to meet the admissibility standard of federal and state law.
-
February 21, 2025
MIAMI — There was no error in a lower court allowing experts to testify for the estate of a man who died from carbon monoxide poisoning, a Florida appellate court ruled, affirming a verdict against the company that rented the man equipment that he used to strip hardwood floors in an enclosed space.
-
February 19, 2025
PHILADELPHIA — An expert retained by a group of former employees at a school who were fired for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine cannot testify because the “misconstruction of the exhibits cited in his report undermine his reliability as it pertains to vaccine efficacy,” a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled, also granting summary judgment to the school.
-
February 18, 2025
CLEVELAND — A trial judge does not need to explain why he suppressed evidence after a suspect successfully argued that it was obtained through a warrant that relied on artificial intelligence facial recognition software that a company itself admits is not reliable, an Ohio appeals court said in denying a motion seeking to direct the judge to issue findings of fact.
-
February 18, 2025
CHARLESTON, S.C. — A federal judge in South Carolina partially granted a motion to exclude experts in a lawsuit alleging an injury at a Target store but denied the company’s motion for summary judgment.
-
February 13, 2025
TAMPA, Fla. — An expert retained by police officers in an excessive force and false arrest case meets the admissibility standards of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. but is barred from offering legal conclusions, a Florida federal judge ruled.
-
February 12, 2025
DALLAS — Experts retained to opine on a safer alternative design to a forklift involved in a workplace accident cannot testify, a Texas federal magistrate judge held, because the “proposed alternatives amount to speculative concepts, which is insufficient to rise to the level of an admissible expert opinion.”