Mealey's Daubert : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Daubert

January 31, 2024
HIV Expert Excluded In Cruise Ship Infection Case, Florida Federal Judge Rules

MIAMI — An HIV expert retained by a cruise company is barred from testifying in a suit brought by a woman who alleges that she contracted the virus during an emergency blood transfusion while aboard the vessel, a Florida federal judge ruled.
January 29, 2024
Flint Plaintiffs Say Defense Expert’s Testimony Amounts To ‘Inadmissible Hearsay’

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The plaintiffs in the Flint water crisis litigation on Jan. 26 filed a reply brief in Michigan federal court seeking to exclude the testimony of an expert witness for three engineering firms that are on trial for their role in the lead-contaminated water crisis in Flint, Mich. The plaintiffs argue that the expert’s previous testimony in the Flint bellwether trial, which is a separate action, constitutes “inadmissible hearsay” in the class action at hand.
January 25, 2024
Damages Expert Admissible In Lanham Act Case For Aftermarket Pool Products

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — An expert retained to opine on damages a company incurred due to consumer confusion about aftermarket products for a pool can testify after a North Carolina federal judge rejected two companies’ motion to exclude and ruled that their objections go to weight, not admissibility.
January 25, 2024
Court: Expert Testimony Properly Allowed In Minnesota Sexual Misconduct Trial

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota appeals court affirmed a man’s conviction for two counts of criminal sexual conduct after finding no error in allowing expert testimony at his trial and rejecting the man’s other arguments on appeal.
January 25, 2024
Indirect Purchasers’ Expert Out In Case Alleging Overcharging By Cheer Company

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Tennessee federal judge granted a motion to exclude an expert retained by parents of competitive cheer athletes who allege that they overpaid for cheer competitions and apparel, finding that while the expert is qualified to testify, his conclusions are irrelevant and unhelpful.
January 24, 2024
Appeals Court: No Error In Medical Expert Exclusion In Nursing Home Care Case

CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said it’s “not a close call” that an expert retained to testify in medical malpractice suit against a nursing home failed to establish a “familiarity with the standard of medical care in Memphis” and found no error in a district court excluding his testimony.
January 23, 2024
1st Circuit: Expert Did Not Opine On Standard Of Care, Was Properly Excluded

BOSTON — After finding that an expert retained by the children of a woman who died after a surgery was properly excluded, the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a summary judgment grant to a group of doctors and a hospital in Puerto Rico in a negligence case.
January 23, 2024
Louisiana Federal Judge Allows Safety Expert’s Testimony In Maritime Injury Suit

NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana federal judge denied a motion to exclude a maritime safety expert retained by a man who alleges that he was injured while disembarking from a dredging vessel, finding that the testimony is admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.
January 22, 2024
Part Of Expert Testimony Improperly Excluded But Court Finds No Reversible Error

LOS ANGELES — A trial court erred in excluding portions of an expert’s testimony for a woman who says she was injured in a slip-and-fall inside a Panda Express restaurant, but that error was harmless, a California appeals court said Jan. 19 in affirming summary judgment for the restaurant.
January 19, 2024
Federal Magistrate: Trucking Expert Can Testify To Cause Of Multivehicle Crash

PENDLETON, Ore. — An expert retained by a man injured in car accident involving multiple vehicles is not required to consider every piece of evidence in formulating his opinions, and his failure to so does not render his testimony unreliable under Federal Rule of Evidence 702, a federal magistrate judge in Oregon ruled in denying a motion to exclude filed by two other drivers.
January 19, 2024
Kansas High Court Says Police Testimony Did Not Need Expert Disclosure

TOPEKA, Kan. — The Kansas Supreme Court upheld a man’s drug convictions after finding that the state court did not abuse its discretion in allowing a police officer to testify as a lay witness and not subjecting him to the admissibility standards for expert testimony.
January 18, 2024
Inventor Tells High Court ‘Expert’ Was Not Person Of Ordinary Skill In The Art

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a reply brief supporting her petition for certiorari, an inventor counters the respondent’s suggestion that she failed to raise any issues of law that would merit review by the U.S. Supreme Court, asserting that she sufficiently alleged that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals erred “by declaring a non-expert as a” person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) “and by relying on his unsupported testimony” in affirming a judgment by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that invalidated her ventilator technology patent.
January 18, 2024
Oven Company Appeals Rulings On Asbestos Experts, Summary Judgment

NEW YORK — A pizza oven asbestos defendant filed a pair of notices on Jan. 17 appealing a New York justice’s rulings allowing three causation experts’ testimony and denying the company summary judgment, according to the court’s docket.
January 17, 2024
Judge Denies Monsanto’s Bid To Exclude Witness In Glyphosate Cancer Lawsuit

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California has denied Monsanto Co.’s effort to exclude a plaintiff’s expert in a glyphosate cancer lawsuit, ruling that Monsanto’s reasoning for why the expert should be stricken “does not find any support” in the cases Monsanto cited in support of its argument.
January 16, 2024
Coverage Owed For Collapse Of Bricks Caused By Hidden Decay, Federal Judge Says

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A Tennessee federal judge determined in a revised opinion that an insurer owes coverage for the collapse of bricks from a wall that occurred during a contractor’s renovations because the collapse was caused by hidden decay, a covered cause of collapse under the policy. However, the judge said questions of fact exist as to whether coverage is owed for the demolition of the remainder of the wall.
January 12, 2024
Experts Limited, Barred In Defense Against Suit Alleging Wrongful Conviction

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Two men who say they were wrongfully found guilty of murder because of police misconduct convinced a Kentucky federal judge to partially exclude two expert witnesses and bar another in their suit against the county and officials involved in their convictions, which have been overturned.
January 11, 2024
Judge Grants Ethicon Another Shot At Partial Expert Exclusion In Pelvic Mesh Case

LEXINGTON, Ky. — A Kentucky federal judge rejected efforts from a pelvic mesh manufacturer to exclude testimony on what information was provided to a woman’s doctor but will grant Ethicon Inc. 30 days to move to exclude the expert’s causation testimony under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. in a long-running case.
January 09, 2024
Magistrate Partially Grants Motions To Exclude Expert Testimony In Crash Case

AUSTIN, Texas — A federal magistrate judge in Texas agreed to limit the testimony presented by two experts retained by a man suing the federal government for injuries he sustained in a car crash with a federal employee.
January 05, 2024
Causation Experts Out In Suit Alleging Defect Caused Accidental Pistol Discharge

FRANKFORT, Ky. — A Kentucky federal judge on Jan. 4 granted summary judgment to a gun manufacturer after finding the two causation experts retained by a man who alleges that a defective firearm accidentally fired and struck his leg to be inadmissible under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.
January 05, 2024
Judge Says Chronic Injury Claims May Not Head To Trial In Chemical Exposure Case

HOUSTON — A federal judge in Texas has ruled that a plaintiff in a chemical injury lawsuit has not offered admissible expert testimony to establish that styrene exposure caused his long-term injures, therefore, his chronic injury claims may not proceed to trial.
January 05, 2024
Expert OK’d In Slip-And-Fall Suit Against Walmart; Rebuttal Witness Excluded

FORT MYERS, Fla. — An expert retained by a man who alleges that he slipped and fell in a Walmart store parking lot based his opinions on a reliable methodology and his conclusions will be helpful to a jury, a Florida federal judge ruled, but also found that the rebuttal witness hired by the retailer failed to meet those requirements and granted a motion to exclude his testimony.
January 05, 2024
Expert Can’t Place Blame On Decedent For Fatal Construction Accident

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A Tennessee federal magistrate judge ruled that an expert retained by a construction company cannot say the decedent was partially to blame for a fatal accident.
January 04, 2024
Concrete And Cement-Material Expert Can Testify In Insurance Coverage Spat

MIAMI — While an insurer’s motion to exclude an expert witness retained in a coverage dispute may “demonstrate some soft and dicey parts” of the expert’s opinions and may provide “substantial amount of legal ammunition to fire at” the expert during cross-examination, a federal magistrate judge in Florida ruled that the expert’s testimony is admissible.
January 03, 2024
Judge Excludes Flint Witness, Says Testimony Not Reliable Under Daubert Standard

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A federal judge in Michigan on Jan. 2 granted a motion to exclude one of the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses in the Flint water crisis litigation, ruling that in his analysis he “repeatedly deviated” from accepted methodology without providing adequate explanation for his choice to do so. As a result, the judge said the plaintiffs did not show that their expert’s testimony is reliable under Daubert v Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.
January 02, 2024
Federal Judge Finds Crypto Firm Sold Coins As Unregistered Securities

NEW YORK — Weeks before a trial is set to begin, a federal judge in New York partially granted the Securities and Exchange Commission’s motion for summary judgment against cryptocurrency firm Terraform Labs Pte. Ltd. and its CEO, finding that there is no dispute that the firm’s crypto assets were sold as unregistered securities.