Mealey's Daubert
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March 06, 2025
Magistrate Judge: Experts Can Opine On Employability, Lost Income After Fall
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.
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March 06, 2025
Class Certification Petition In Pet Supplement Case Denied By U.S. High Court
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.
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March 06, 2025
Judge Rules On Motions To Bar Experts From Testifying In Honey Production Spat
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.
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March 05, 2025
Treating Doctors Survive Motions To Exclude In Car Crash Injury Dispute
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.
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March 03, 2025
Mass. High Court Upholds Procedural Rulings In Rape, Murder Case, Denies New Trial
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.
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February 27, 2025
Judge: Expert In Criminal Case Can Opine On Tactics Used During Police Interview
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.
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February 27, 2025
Judge Certifies Class Accusing Loan App Operator Of Concealing Fees
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.
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February 26, 2025
Sig Sauer Wants En Banc Rehearing On Experts Ruling In Pistol Design Defect Case
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.
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February 25, 2025
9th Circuit Finds No Error In Convictions, Sentencing Of Theranos’ Holmes, Balwani
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.
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February 25, 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 and February 2025 issues of Mealey’s Daubert Report.
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February 25, 2025
Judge Denies Motion To Certify Class Of Timeshare Purchasers, Bars Rebuttal Witness
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.
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February 25, 2025
Exclusion Of Expert Was Too Harsh Of A Sanction, Tennessee Appeals Court Says
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.
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February 24, 2025
Experts Out In Legal Malpractice Case After Judge Finds Testimony Unreliable
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.
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February 24, 2025
Judge: Both Experts Can Offer Limited Testimony In Unfair Competition Dispute
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.
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February 21, 2025
Police Officer Can Testify As Expert In Drug Dealing Practices, Del. Judge Says
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.
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February 21, 2025
Experts Properly Admitted To Testify On Cause Of Man’s Death, Opine On Prevention
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.
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February 19, 2025
Federal Judge Excludes Expert In Vaccine Mandate Case, Grants Summary Judgment
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.
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February 18, 2025
Court Won’t Require Judge To Explain Ruling Excluding AI-Obtained Evidence
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.
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February 18, 2025
Judge Partially Excludes Experts In Injury Case But Allows Case To Move Forward
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.
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February 13, 2025
Florida Federal Judge Admits Expert On Use Of Force In Case Against Deputy, Sheriff
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.
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February 12, 2025
Magistrate Judge Finds Alternative Design Ideas Speculative, Bars Testimony
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.”
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February 11, 2025
Federal Circuit: New Judge Needed In Patent Row After Expert Testimony Issues
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ordered a new trial on patent infringement to be held in front of a different judge in a North Carolina federal court, holding that the judge who previously oversaw a patent dispute between two biomedical companies repeatedly made statements that could call into question his appearance of fairness in the case.
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February 11, 2025
Recommendations Made On Experts’ Admissibility In Maritime Accident Case
MIAMI — A federal magistrate judge in Florida recommended that a cruise ship operator’s motion to exclude expert witnesses be granted in part and that a motion to exclude the company’s medical expert be denied and a motion to exclude a rebuttal witness be granted, but he noted that some of the more persuasive arguments for exclusion were not raised by the parties.
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February 10, 2025
9th Circuit: No Error In Allowing Testimony On Translated Text Messages
PASADENA, Calif. — There was no error in a California district court’s decision to allow a Spanish/English translation expert to testify on recovered text messages that a man who was convicted of drug trafficking alleges were scrambled, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held.
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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.