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Mealey's Daubert

  • August 15, 2025

    Panel: Plaintiffs’ Expert’s Opinion In Roundup Case Not Based On Sufficient Facts

    SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel has affirmed a lower court ruling that excluded a plaintiff couple’s expert in a cancer lawsuit against Monsanto Co. related to exposure to the herbicide Roundup, ruling that the district court correctly determined that the expert’s opinion was not based on sufficient facts or data as required by Federal Rule of Evidence 702(b).

  • August 14, 2025

    Expert Can Testify That Marijuana Use, Not Defective Helmet, Caused Brain Injuries

    SHERMAN, Texas — A neuropsychologist who opines that a man’s cognitive and neurological impairments were, at least in part, caused by his use of marijuana and not solely the result of wearing an allegedly defectively designed motorcycle helmet during an accident can testify after a Texas federal judge rejected the man’s efforts to bar her testimony under Federal Rules of Evidence 702 and 403.

  • August 14, 2025

    Texas Federal Judge Rejects Fees For Microsoft After Patent Judgment

    AUSTIN, Texas — A federal judge in Texas denied Microsoft Corp.’s motion for attorney fees in a patent infringement suit filed against it, despite a federal magistrate judge’s recommendation that Microsoft’s motion be partially granted; the judge disagreed with the magistrate judge’s assessment that the plaintiff company’s post-discovery conduct did not justify finding that the case was “exceptional.”

  • August 14, 2025

    Medical Providers Want Lawyers Disqualified For Expert’s AI Use

    SALT LAKE CITY — Two attorneys in a False Claims Act lawsuit should be disqualified for their role in submitting an expert whose artificial intelligence-generated report included a “litany of made-up quotes and sources,” medical providers say in Aug. 13 filings arguing that monetary sanctions are insufficient and that the court should stay the case.

  • August 13, 2025

    Amazon’s Human Factors Expert Out In FTC Suit Over Prime Membership Enrollment

    SEATTLE — A Washington federal judge agreed with the Federal Trade Commission that testimony from an expert retained by Amazon.com Inc. to opine on the company’s user interfaces in a suit accusing Amazon and its officers of tricking customers into enrolling in the Amazon Prime service is inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.

  • August 13, 2025

    E-Cig Maker To High Court: Federal Circuit Gets Patent Damages Wrong

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Electronic cigarette maker R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. (RJR) tells the U.S. Supreme Court in a petition for a writ of certiorari that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ affirmation of a jury’s award of more than $95 million in damages for infringing on another company’s tobacco pod technology conflicts with Supreme Court precedent on the apportionment of damages in patent infringement cases.

  • August 12, 2025

    Magistrate Judge Says Expert’s Opinions Based Solely On Experience Are Excluded

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a “decision [that] breaks no new ground,” a federal magistrate judge in the District of Columbia granted a motion to exclude an expert retained by a man who alleges that nearby construction damaged the two townhomes on his property.

  • August 12, 2025

    Judge Allows Experts In Case Alleging Mosquito Repellant Device Sparked Fire

    ORLANDO, Fla. — An expert retained by a homeowner who opines that a mosquito repellant device was defective and caused a fire can testify, a Florida federal judge said, rejecting arguments from the manufacturer and seller of the product that the expert’s testimony was inadmissible.

  • August 11, 2025

    Talc, Other Expert Opinions Largely Admitted In Dentist’s Asbestos Suit

    LOS ANGELES — A California judge said punitive damages will be bifurcated according to California law but otherwise admitted testimony in a former dentist’s asbestos personal injury case, saying that experts may call upon training and experience and that studies on which they rely need not be identical to real world situations.  In a trial brief, a dental supply company told the court that any potential exposure from its periodontal packs in the late 1960s and 1970s would have been too small to cause mesothelioma.

  • August 08, 2025

    Expert Withdrawn After AI Use Causes ‘Litany’ of Errors in False Claims Suit

    SALT LAKE CITY — A federal judge in Utah in an Aug. 7 docket-only order denied as moot a motion to exclude expert testimony after the plaintiff withdrew the expert report following disclosures that the expert’s use of artificial intelligence had led to fabricated quotations, citations and regulatory references.

  • August 08, 2025

    10th Circuit: Rule 702 Ruling Wrongly Excluded Evidence, Not Just Expert Witness

    DENVER — A district court incorrectly expanded a ruling on a motion to exclude under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 to bar a man who alleges that a former employer violated trade secret laws from presenting evidence and fact witnesses on lost wages damages at trial, the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held.

  • August 08, 2025

    Idaho Federal Judge Grants Motion To Exclude Expert In Patent Dispute

    BOISE, Idaho — A federal judge in Idaho ruled on the admissibility of expert testimony in a patent dispute, finding that certain testimony is now moot and that one expert is not qualified to testify.

  • August 07, 2025

    Judge Finds Proposed Expert Testimony Irrelevant After Certain Claims Dismissed

    TACOMA, Wash. — After granting a motion to dismiss a man’s negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED) claim, a Washington federal judge found that testimony from experts retained by a man who sued after his wife died from surgical complications is admissible as irrelevant under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.

  • August 05, 2025

    3rd Circuit Says Causation Expert Testimony Not Needed In Gun Design Defect Case

    PHILADELPHIA — With instructions to “not underestimate jurors,” the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals agreed that a district court correctly excluded causation testimony from two firearm experts but found that the court erred in awarding summary judgment for a gun manufacturer because “[g]iven the other admissible evidence, a jury is well equipped to figure out what caused this gun to fire.”

  • August 01, 2025

    Mass. Federal Judge Says Expert Can Testify In Dispute Over Rental Car Coverage

    BOSTON — A Massachusetts federal judge has ruled that an expert retained by policyholders suing their insurers for prematurely terminating their rental car benefits can testify, finding that he is admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and that any potential bias goes to the weight or the credibility of his testimony (Diane Watts, et al. v. Liberty Mutual Personal Insurance Co., et al., No. 23-12845, D. Mass., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 145918).

  • August 01, 2025

    AFFF Defendants: Plaintiffs’ Experts Are Inadmissible Under Rule Of Evidence

    CHARLESTON, S.C. — The defendants in the multidistrict litigation (MDL) for the firefighting agent aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) filed a reply brief in South Carolina federal court on July 31 arguing that the court should exclude the opinions of three of the plaintiffs’ experts in three cases in the MDL because they are inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.

  • July 30, 2025

    College Tennis Player Class Certified In Suit Challenging NCAA Prize Money Rules

    WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — A federal judge in North Carolina denied motions to exclude opinions from two experts and certified a class of college tennis players challenging the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s rules that limit the amount of prize money Division I players can accept when they win noncollegiate tennis tournaments.

  • July 30, 2025

    Federal Circuit Orders New Trial On Validity, Damages In Lighting Patent Fight

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in Texas wrongly prevented a defendant lighting company from presenting evidence of the invalidity of a plaintiff patent holder’s lighting patents, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, finding that the error makes a new trial on invalidity and damages necessary.

  • July 29, 2025

    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, February, March, April, May, June and July 2025 issues of Mealey’s Daubert Report.

  • July 29, 2025

    Series Of Motions To Exclude Experts In Pelvic Mesh Case Denied By Ky. Federal Judge

    LEXINGTON, Ky. — The Kentucky federal judge presiding over a long-running case against a pelvic mesh manufacturer denied four separate motions to exclude experts filed by the manufacturer and a woman who says she was injured by the mesh, most recently ruling that the woman’s expert can opine on whether Ethicon Inc. met industry standards.

  • July 28, 2025

    ‘Sensitive Skin’ Mislabeling Class Action Was Properly Certified, 9th Circuit Says

    SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 25 affirmed a court’s certification of a class action against Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. (J&J) for allegedly misrepresenting the benefits of a sensitive skin care product in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws, finding that the lower court properly certified the class based on the plaintiff’s damages expert and the likelihood of making classwide liability findings.

  • July 22, 2025

    Suit Over Allegedly Outdated Pension Assumptions Mostly Survives Summary Judgment

    SAN FRANCISCO — A putative class action challenging the use of allegedly outdated assumptions to calculate annuities for married pension plan participants is proceeding toward a bench trial after a California federal judge mostly denied the defendants’ motion for summary judgment and denied their motion to exclude the plaintiffs’ expert.

  • July 18, 2025

    6th Circuit Affirms Hip Implant Device Manufacturer’s Summary Judgment Award

    CINCINNATI — A lower court properly granted a manufacturer of a hip implant device summary judgment after finding that a man’s expert witnesses to support his claim that the device was defective were properly excluded under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held.

  • July 18, 2025

    D.C. Appeals Court: Expert Testimony Was Not Needed For Slip-And-Fall Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia appeals court on July 17 held that “a lay juror could determine, from their common knowledge and everyday experience, whether” a janitorial company “exercised reasonable care in warning passersby of the hazard caused by the wet floor,” reversing a decision by a lower court that failure to present expert testimony was fatal to a woman’s case.

  • July 17, 2025

    Expert Who Testified On Intimate Partner Violence In Assault Case Properly Admitted

    CONCORD, N.H. — A New Hampshire trial court did not abuse its discretion in allowing an expert to testify about intimate partner violence in a criminal case, the state Supreme Court said, finding that the testimony met the state’s admissibility standards.