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July 28, 2026
Entries are in alphabetical order of the expert in each area of expert testimony. Experts appeared in the January, February, March, April, May, June and July 2026 issues of Mealey’s Daubert Report.
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July 28, 2026
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Parties in a proposed class action over the alleged polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contamination of a lake briefed a federal judge in South Carolina over whether an expert industrial hygienist’s use of artificial intelligence produced fake citations that form the basis of his opinion or whether he merely used the technology appropriately to summarize documents and can account for all references on which he relied.
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July 28, 2026
ABERDEEN, S.D. — A bad faith claim against a homeowners insurer and its agent cannot proceed because the insurer had a reasonable basis to deny coverage for damage to siding on the insured home, a South Dakota federal judge said in granting partial summary judgment in favor of the defendants.
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July 28, 2026
ORLANDO, Fla. — Despite “decades of experience in the technology and privacy fields as well as his educational background in these fields and in economics,” an expert retained to opine on damages in a privacy suit “lacks sufficient familiarity with the” specific statutes at issue in the case, a federal judge in Florida said and granted a motion to exclude his testimony.
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July 28, 2026
CHICAGO — A federal magistrate judge in Illinois ruled that three experts retained by a driver injured in a highway work-zone accident may testify after finding that objections raised by a highway construction and traffic control company go to the credibility and weight of the opinions rather than their admissibility.
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July 28, 2026
ST. LOUIS — After each party had filed a brief in the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals concerning an attempt to revive a putative class Employee Retirement Income Security Act mortality table case, the appellants moved for voluntary dismissal of the appeal with prejudice and the appellate court granted the motion after the appellees reported that they did not object to the motion.
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July 28, 2026
TRENTON, N.J. — Johnson & Johnson entities asked a federal court in New Jersey for additional time to object to a special master’s recommendation allowing some of asbestos expert William Longo’s testimony in the federal multidistrict litigation. The Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee (PSC) said in a subsequent filing that it didn’t oppose the extension but asked that it be applied to all parties.
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July 28, 2026
TAMPA, Fla. — A federal magistrate judge in Florida recommended that dueling experts retained in an excessive force case against officers from the Lakeland, Fla., Police Department be allowed to testify but with certain limitations in accordance with Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.
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July 28, 2026
BALTIMORE — Defense counsel for a man convicted of second-degree murder was on notice that the admissibility of the firearm toolmark examiner’s testimony in Maryland courts was in dispute, and a ruling from the state Supreme Court after the verdict that disallowed the type of testimony presented in his case did not require the trial court to order a new trial, a Maryland appeals court held.
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July 28, 2026
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina appeals court rejected a woman’s argument that a trial court erred in denying her motion to exclude expert testimony in a car accident case and disagreed with her assessment that the testimony did not meet the standards set forth in South Carolina v. Council.
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July 24, 2026
DETROIT — A federal judge in Michigan largely denied competing motions to exclude testimony under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 from three mental health experts in a wrongful conviction lawsuit, ruling that each may testify but placing limits on the scope of certain opinions.
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July 23, 2026
NEW YORK — A New York federal judge on July 22 found that opinions offered by an expert retained by one of the few plaintiffs remaining in the M/L Taper hip multidistrict litigation are unreliable and that he could not establish what caused the man’s device to fracture; the judge also granted summary judgment to the manufacturer because of the exclusion of the expert testimony.
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July 14, 2026
NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 13 vacated rulings excluding the testimony of four general causation experts retained by parents who allege that prenatal exposure to acetaminophen causes autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and the resulting judgments, remanding to the multidistrict litigation judge, who had dismissed the cases for lack of causation.
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July 13, 2026
CHICAGO — The majority of an Illinois appeals court on July 10 affirmed a $45 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson entities, turning away challenges that the award of prejudgment interest was unconstitutional, that the handling of testimony from three witnesses was improper and that damages for a shortened life expectancy could be awarded on a survival claim.
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July 09, 2026
NEW YORK — That a party in a dispute involving a breach of a manufacturing and supply agreement disagrees with the opinions of an opposing expert witness is not grounds for exclusion under Federal Rule of Evidence 702, a New York federal judge held in denying two motions to exclude expert testimony.
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July 07, 2026
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A medical toxicologist can opine on a woman’s estimated blood- alcohol concentration but cannot testify on her capacity to consent to sexual intercourse, a New Mexico federal judge ruled, partially granting a motion to exclude filed by a woman who alleges that she was assaulted by an on-duty police officer.
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July 07, 2026
CAMDEN, N.J. — A New Jersey federal judge partially granted an insured’s motion for summary judgment after determining that coverage is owed for environmental contamination claims; however, the judge did not enter a final declaratory judgment in favor of the insured because questions of fact exist regarding the insurer’s rescission counterclaim.
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July 01, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — The limitations of large language models mean that a proposed witness’s prompting of ChatGPT and parroting of its outputs on whether an artificial intelligence model memorized works does not qualify him as an expert, defendants tell a judge in California federal court.
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June 30, 2026
TRENTON, N.J. — The New Jersey Supreme Court on June 29 ordered a special adjudicator to hold a hearing to determine whether the fingerprint evidence presented at a burglary trial satisfied the admissibility standards set forth in State v. Olenowski (Olenowski I) but stopped short of overturning a man’s conviction.
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June 24, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a petition for panel rehearing or en banc rehearing from DePuy Synthes Sales Inc. and related DePuy entities, leaving in place a split panel’s January opinion that reversed a Pennsylvania federal judge’s decision to exclude expert witnesses in a dispute brought by a physician who claimed that the DePuy entities induced surgeons to infringe certain claims of his patents.
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June 23, 2026
OWENSBORO, Ky. — A breach of contract claim will proceed against a homeowners insurer because questions of fact exist on whether damage to the foundation of an insured home was preexisting damage and, therefore, excluded under the policy, a Kentucky federal judge said in denying the insurer’s motion for summary judgment on the breach of contract claim.
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June 23, 2026
Entries are in alphabetical order of the expert in each area of expert testimony. Experts appeared in the January, February, March, April, May and June 2026 issues of Mealey’s Daubert Report.
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June 23, 2026
MARSHALL, Texas — A Texas federal judge rejected arguments from three cell phone providers that the conclusions of a company’s damages expert “are sufficiently unreliable and flawed” and ruled that the expert can testify in a patent infringement dispute involving technology used in cellular networking equipment.
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June 23, 2026
MILWAUKEE — After finding that most of the opinions of a mechanical engineer retained to offer expert testimony are irrelevant to a woman's defective design claims and that the opinion that meets admissibility standards does not relate to the woman’s allegations, a Wisconsin federal judge awarded the seller of a pressure cooker summary judgment and dismissed the case with prejudice.
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June 22, 2026
CHICAGO — A federal prisoner’s medical expert, who opines that health care workers at the prison failed to take appropriate steps to address his medical concerns, can testify, an Illinois federal judge held, finding that the expert meets the admissibility standards of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.