In a decision reinforcing the importance of expert testimony in design defect and failure to warn cases, the Eastern District of New York recently dismissed claims against the makers of PAM cooking spray.
Continue reading “Lack of Admissible Expert Evidence Combusts PAM Can Claims in EDNY”
Applying basic scientific principles to exclude an expert’s unfounded and unsupported opinions, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has granted summary judgment to the maker of the antipsychotic medication Abilify on the plaintiff’s failure to warn and negligent design defect claims. Rodman v. Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc., 2020 WL 2525032 (N.D. Cal. May 18, 2020).
In the “Daubert trilogy,” Rule 702 spawned three children, all special in their own way. The firstborn, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms., Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), naturally receives most of the attention, being the pioneer. The middle child, General Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136 (1997), tends to be comparatively underappreciated in the shadow of its predecessor. Kumho Tire Co., Ltd. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (1999), the youngest, generally receives the least attention.
Daubert’s broad pronouncements about gatekeeping principles dominate the Rule 702 landscape. No one calls a motion to exclude a “Joiner motion”; no one participates in a “Kumho hearing.” But in the broad wake of Daubert, Joiner played a particularly important and multifaceted role in shaping the ongoing development of Rule 702 jurisprudence. Its influence is worth revisiting.
Continue reading “The Daubert Toolbox: Revisiting and Appreciating Joiner, the Middle Child”
In In re: Accutane Litigation (A-4952-16T1) — an appeal decided just 10 days after oral argument — the New Jersey Appellate Division applied the New Jersey Supreme Court’s landmark decision In re Accutane Litigation, 234 N.J. 340 (2018) (Accutane 2018), arising from the same multicounty litigation, to affirm exclusion of two of plaintiffs’ experts and dismissal of more than 3,000 cases.
The Accutane multicounty litigation involves thousands of cases in which plaintiffs claim the prescription acne medication caused inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The litigation has been divided into two parts, based on the sub-type of IBD injury alleged: cases in which plaintiffs claim Accutane caused Crohn’s disease (CD) and cases in which plaintiffs claim it caused ulcerative colitis (UC).
Amateur philosophers, bar flies, and eulogists, among others, are known to wistfully observe that nothing dies so long as it is remembered and discussed. That’s a comforting sentiment when it comes to loved ones and legacies, but it can be mischievous and bothersome when applied to fallen case law. The long, drawn-out demise of Roberti v. Andy’s Termite & Pest Control. Inc., 113 Cal.App.4th 893 (2003) is a case in point, so to speak.
Roberti is part of a much longer story about California’s journey to adoption of Daubert-style reliability gatekeeping for the testimony of expert witnesses.
You can find the first two parts of this story here and here.
In 2013, spurred by the decisions in Marsh and Hood, the Florida Legislature amended F.S. 90.702 to mirror Federal Rule of Evidence 702. In a preamble to the final bill, the Legislature expressed its intent to (1) adopt the standards set forth in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Daubert trilogy and (2) prohibit “pure opinion testimony as provided in Marsh…”
Ordinarily, this definitive a legislative adoption of Daubert and rejection of Frye and pure opinion would be the end of the story. But Florida plaintiffs’ lawyers immediately mounted a challenge to the amendment based on the separation of powers provisions of the Florida Constitution, and they had a liberal and receptive Supreme Court.
Continue reading “Growing Pains: The Story Behind Florida’s Daubert Arc – Part 3”
