Mealey's Daubert
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.