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Mealey's Daubert

  • March 20, 2026

    Mississippi Appeals Court Affirms Exclusion Of Crash Reconstruction Expert

    JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi appeals court found that a lower court properly awarded a driver and his employer summary judgment in a negligence case after finding that the conclusions reached by an expert retained by the estate of a woman killed in a car accident were speculative.

  • March 20, 2026

    Judge Allows School District’s Experts To Testify In PCB Case Against Monsanto

    BURLINGTON, Vt. — A Vermont federal judge was unconvinced by arguments from Monsanto Co. that experts retained by the Burlington School District (BSD) should be excluded from testifying in support of the school district’s lawsuit alleging contamination from polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

  • March 20, 2026

    Class Certification Bid Fails In ERISA Suit Over PrEP Treatment Costs

    MINNEAPOLIS — Saying the plaintiffs “have not demonstrated that class membership can be determined through objective and administrable criteria,” a Minnesota federal judge denied class certification in a case over cost-sharing for medical services associated with preventive treatment that reduces the risk of HIV infection.

  • March 20, 2026

    Mo. High Court Says Without Expert Testimony, Summary Judgment Properly Granted

    ST. LOUIS — The Missouri Supreme Court found that a trial court did not err in sustaining a forklift manufacturer’s summary judgment motion because the court did not abuse its discretion in finding that an expert retained by a man who claims that he was injured by the machine was properly excluded as inadmissible, disagreeing with a divided lower appellate court that found that the expert’s exclusion was an error.

  • March 18, 2026

    Ariz. Federal Judge Says Accident Reconstruction Experts Can Testify In Bench Trial

    PHOENIX — An Arizona federal judge declined to exclude dueling accident reconstruction experts in a pending bench trial because each expert meets the admissibility standards under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. and the judge can address specific concerns during the trial.

  • March 17, 2026

    Mich. Federal Judge Limits Economics Expert Testimony In Wrongful Death Suit

    DETROIT — An economic expert retained by the estate of a man who died while incarcerated can testify as to the loss of the man’s future financial support and loss of his household services but cannot opine on the family’s entitlement to the loss of his future earning capacity, a Michigan federal judge ruled.

  • March 16, 2026

    Federal Magistrate Judge: Experts In Fall Case Don’t Meet Admissibility Standards

    PORTLAND, Ore. — An Oregon federal magistrate judge agreed that testimony from experts retained by a man who claims that he was injured when he fell while loading his belongings into a trailer does not meet the admissibility standards under Federal Rule of Evidence 702, Fed. R. Evid. 702, and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993).

  • March 13, 2026

    Groups: Supreme Court Should Grant Petition, Review Rule 702 Ruling In EtO Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business advocacy groups have filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court supporting a petition by Union Carbide Corp. and an affiliate seeking review of a federal appellate court opinion in a dispute over the correct legal standard for the admissibility of an expert in an ethylene oxide (EtO) injury case.  The amici argue that the Fourth Circuit “became the second circuit (after the First Circuit) to reaffirm incorrect ‘weight not admissibility’ jurisprudence in the wake of” amendments that were made to Federal Rule of Evidence 702 in 2023.

  • March 12, 2026

    Woman Tells High Court To Reject Petition Mulling Daubert Requirements For Class

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals properly found that a lower court relied on “an unexecuted damages model developed by an experienced economist” in granting certification of a class action, but in a petition for a writ of certiorari, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. (J&J) “pivots and seeks review of a different question,” the representative of the class tells the U.S. Supreme Court in a March 11 opposition brief.

  • March 11, 2026

    Expert Can Testify On Psychological Damage Caused By Racial Harassment At Work

    OMAHA, Neb. — A clinical psychologist can testify that “a series of racially targeted incidents” caused a former employee of Oriental Trading Co. (OTC) to suffer from post-traumatic stress and anxiety, a federal magistrate judge in Nebraska held, also ruling that the company’s expert is excluded from testifying on legal conclusions.

  • March 11, 2026

    Texas Federal Judge Wrongly Excluded Damages Expert, Federal Circuit Says

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed a Texas federal judge’s decision to exclude a plaintiff technology company’s expert on damages and vacated the judge’s grant of summary judgment for absence of remedy in Microsoft Corp.’s favor on infringement claims involving patents describing a method for communication between virtual networks.

  • March 10, 2026

    Government Seeks Review Of Order On Expert Admissibility In Camp Lejeune Case

    RALEIGH, N.C. — The U.S. government moved in North Carolina federal court for reconsideration of an order that granted the Plaintiff Leadership Group’s (PLG) motion to reserve expert admissibility determinations until trial in the litigation over drinking water contamination at Camp Lejeune. The order also denied the government’s request for an evidentiary hearing on water contamination issues before holding bellwether trials and held in abeyance multiple motions related to Federal Rule of Evidence 702.

  • March 09, 2026

    Pa. Federal Judge Finds Economic Expert Testimony Allowed In Slip-And-Fall Case

    HARRISBURG, Pa. — A Pennsylvania federal judge ruled that experts retained by a woman who fell in a resort’s parking lot can testify about her projected future economic losses, rejecting efforts by the resort to find their testimony inadmissible.

  • March 09, 2026

    Judge Rules Expert Can Opine On Whether Brothers Felt Pain In Workplace Accident

    WILMINGTON, Del. — An equipment rental company has reached a confidential settlement with the parents of two brothers who were killed when an aerial lift used to repair cell phone towers tipped over; the agreement came a week after a judge in a Delaware state court denied motions for summary judgment filed by the other defendants and ruled that an expert on conscious pain and suffering could testify.

  • March 06, 2026

    Causation Experts Limited In MDL Alleging Toxins In Baby Food Leads To ASD/ADHD

    SAN FRANCISCO — The judge overseeing the multidistrict litigation involving cases filed by parents who allege that their children developed autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) due to consumption of certain baby foods containing toxic heavy metals ruled that some opinions by the parents’ general causation experts are inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.

  • March 05, 2026

    Discovery Deadline Extended Again In Hurricane Coverage Dispute Involving LIGA

    BATON ROUGE, La. — After previously granting homeowners’ motion to extend discovery to provide expert disclosures, a Louisiana federal magistrate judge in a docket-only order granted a motion by the Louisiana Insurance Guaranty Association (LIGA) to further extend discovery in the homeowners’ Hurricane Ida coverage dispute with an insurance carrier participating in the U.S. government’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and LIGA.

  • March 05, 2026

    Attorney Says Faulty Quotes Not AI’s Fault In Valve Patent Troll Trial

    SEATTLE — An attorney for a man accused by Valve Corp. of being a “patent troll” responded to a Washington federal judge’s order to show cause, arguing that fake quotations were caused by the error of a contract attorney; on the same day, the judge entered $11,500 in attorney fees against the defense for fees incurred during a discovery dispute before a recently completed trial.

  • March 02, 2026

    Judge Won’t Bar Daubert Exclusion Questioning, But Asbestos Soil Expert Is Out

    NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge in Louisiana said she would not impose a blanket prohibition on trial questions about whether experts were excluded in other asbestos cases but warned counsel not to go into excessive detail about the rulings in those cases.  Days earlier, the judge said a shipyard should have known that it had a duty to preserve soil samples tested by an expert who had yet to be deposed in an asbestos case rapidly approaching trial, excluding the expert and any expert opinions relying on her soil testing.

  • March 02, 2026

    Gun, Drug Trafficking Experts Can Testify In Florida Federal Case, Judge Says

    MIAMI — Testimony from experts retained by the federal government will help a jury to understand evidence relating to a machinegun conversion device and “coded language that is frequently used in the enterprise of drug trafficking,” a Florida federal magistrate judge ruled, denying motions to exclude filed by two men facing trial on drug and gun charges.

  • February 27, 2026

    Judge Gives Reasons For Juul Antitrust Class Ruling, Allows Reconsideration

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge on Feb. 26 issued a ruling providing the reasoning behind a previously issued short-form order certifying several classes of purchasers bringing antitrust claims against Juul Labs Inc. (JLI) and Altria Group Inc. for allegedly seeking to monopolize the e-cigarette market, and also granted a defense motion for reconsideration as to time limits on the class.

  • February 27, 2026

    Judge Rules Materials Science Expert Can Testify For Bard In Port Catheter MDL

    PHOENIX — The Arizona federal judge overseeing the multidistrict litigation involving C.R. Bard Inc.’s implanted port catheter (IPC) device denied a motion filed by the plaintiffs to exclude an expert in materials science after finding that the expert properly used a reliable methodology in reaching his conclusions.

  • February 27, 2026

    Retirees File 8th Circuit Appeal In ERISA Pension Actuarial Equivalence Case

    ST. LOUIS — Retirees have filed an Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals challenge to a ruling that ended their putative class Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit actuarial equivalence case by excluding their expert’s testimony and entering summary judgment against them.

  • February 24, 2026

    Experts Featured In Mealey’s Daubert Report

    Entries are in alphabetical order of the expert in each area of expert testimony.  Experts appeared in the January and February 2026 issue of Mealey’s Daubert Report.

  • February 24, 2026

    Judge Nixes Asbestos Experts After Briefing On New Rules, Supreme Court Precedent

    SEATTLE — A federal in Washington judge excluded a pair of asbestos experts and granted summary judgment to two shipyard defendants after the parties briefed her on the impact of the amended Federal Rules of Evidence and a recent U.S. Supreme Court case governing federal jurisdiction.

  • February 24, 2026

    South Dakota High Court Finds Error In Excluding Expert In Malpractice Case

    PIERRE, S.D. — The South Dakota Supreme Court found that a trial court failed to properly consider an expert’s opinions on differential diagnosis under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. and reversed summary judgment granted to a medical center and its doctor in a medical malpractice case.