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October 14, 2025
SAN FRANCISCO — The plaintiffs in the Wave 9 cases in the multidistrict litigation (MDL) for the herbicide Roundup on Oct. 13 filed a brief in California federal court opposing Monsanto Co.’s motion to exclude all of their general causation experts, arguing that, based on previous rulings by the court, their experts should be admitted.
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October 14, 2025
TAMPA, Fla. — A firearm and toolmark examiner can testify to a potential match of ammunition in a murder trial after a Florida federal judge found that her testimony meets the admissibility standards set under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
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October 09, 2025
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Florida trial judge improperly “supplanted the jury’s role as factfinder” when he reweighed photographic evidence and granted an insurer’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) after a jury considered expert testimony and evidence to find that Hurricane Irma created a hole in a home’s roof, a state appeals court ruled Oct. 8.
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October 09, 2025
MONROE, La. — An expert can opine on what caused a scaffolding system to collapse at a construction site, leading to an injury, a Louisiana federal judge held, but the judge limited his testimony to topics beyond a juror’s understanding.
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October 07, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 6 rejected a medical product company’s petition for a writ of certiorari in which it told the court that a North Carolina federal court violated its due process rights by changing both the time to trial and the time for discovery in a patent infringement case for which the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has already ordered a new trial.
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October 06, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 6 rejected a petition for a writ of certiorari from a playwright who contended that the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals was wrong to affirm a California federal judge’s grant of summary judgment to film production entities the writer accused of copying elements of her work.
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October 06, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a Delaware federal jury’s finding that a medical technology company and affiliated entities infringed a single claim of a competitor’s patent on a surgical stapling product and also affirmed the judge’s decision to reduce the jury’s damages award from $10 million to only $1.
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October 06, 2025
NASHVILLE — An expert retained by a nurse practitioner facing criminal charges alleging that she conspired to distribute controlled substances can testify, a Tennessee federal judge ruled, but he cannot opine on whether the nurse practitioner acted within the standard of care.
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October 03, 2025
MINNEAPOLIS — Experts retained by Minnesota and a retail chain of stores can testify in a case accusing the company of selling firearms to individuals it knew or should have known were straw purchasers, a Minnesota federal judge said, finding that the two experts meet admissibility standards set under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.
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October 03, 2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The plaintiffs in a consolidated class action over the hacking of software created by Accellion Inc. saw some of their expert’s testimony stricken for his lack of experience by a California federal judge who also partly granted the plaintiffs’ motion to certify several subclasses related to Accellion’s customers who were affected by the data breach incidents.
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September 29, 2025
NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has rescheduled oral arguments in an appeal over whether a district court erred in excluding testimony from experts retained by parents who allege that prenatal exposure to acetaminophen causes autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) after receiving letters from the parties in the wake of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently announcing a possible link between the use of the drug and the disorders.
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September 26, 2025
SAN FRANCISCIO — A federal judge acted within his discretion under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. in excluding testimony from a causation expert retained by a man who sued Monsanto Co. for allegedly causing his cancer as a result of exposure to glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Sept. 25 in affirming summary judgment for Monsanto.
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September 25, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Google LLC on Sept. 24 waived its right to a respond to a smart thermostat company’s petition for a writ of certiorari in which the company argues that the en banc Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ decision to order a Texas federal judge hold a new trial on damages wrongly eschewed the jury’s factual findings in its favor.
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September 24, 2025
PITTSBURGH — A hydraulic fracturing company has filed two reply briefs in Pennsylvania federal court seeking to exclude plaintiffs’ witnesses in a royalty dispute, arguing that neither expert meets the standard for admissibility under Federal Rule of Evidence 702. With regard to one of the experts, Barry Pulliam, the company insists that “given his admittedly questionable expertise,” the plaintiffs’ “attempt to slip Mr. Pulliam’s Count III opinions in the back door through hypotheticals fails.”
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September 23, 2025
Entries are in alphabetical order of the expert in each area of expert testimony. Experts appeared in the January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August and September 2025 issues of Mealey’s Daubert Report.
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September 23, 2025
EUGENE, Ore. — A federal judge in Oregon agreed to limit testimony from an expert retained in a police officer-related shooting case after finding that the expert’s education and experience do not allow him to testify on perception response time.
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September 23, 2025
MUSKOGEE, Okla. — An Oklahoma federal judge denied a motion to exclude the testimony of an expert who opined on the property value of a ranch that was allegedly contaminated by a pipeline after finding that an expert who opined on the value of a property meets admissibility standards.
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September 22, 2025
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A life care planning expert retained in a medical negligence case can opine on the costs associated with the future care of a woman who alleges that her medical treatment was inadequate but cannot base that testimony on her selection of necessary medical codes, an Illinois federal judge ruled Sept. 19.
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September 22, 2025
RALEIGH, N.C. — A man who alleges that a pre-employment drug screening test is discriminatory because it yields inaccurate results from porous or curly hair types common in African Americans lost his bid on Sept. 19 to bar testimony from an expert retained by the employer, which opined that the positive result for cocaine in the man’s test was accurate, when a federal magistrate judge found that the man’s arguments went to the weight of the evidence.
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September 19, 2025
INDIANAPOLIS — Experts retained in a lawsuit brought by a transgender student who sued his school district for its refusal to allow him to use the bathroom of his choice cannot offer testimony that is irrelevant to the facts in dispute in the case, an Indiana federal judge ruled.
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September 19, 2025
RICHMOND, Va. — An expert retained by a former inmate who alleges that delayed medical care worsened his injuries cannot testify after a federal judge in Virigina found that his report does not comply with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 and that his medical opinions are inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.
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September 19, 2025
RALEIGH, N.C. — A North Carolina federal judge granted summary judgment to a gun manufacturer after excluding two experts retained by a man who claims that his firearm accidently discharged and caused injuries.
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September 18, 2025
LOS ANGELES — Following a partial win on upcoming bellwether trials, Johnson & Johnson entities asked the Los Angeles judge overseeing coordinated asbestos-talc ovarian cancer proceedings to exclude the plaintiffs’ general causation experts and expert William Longo’s testing and opinions, saying the experts twist and misreport findings and are not reliable.
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September 16, 2025
SAN DIEGO — A California federal judge granted a motion to certify a New York state class accusing the maker of a dietary supplement that contains elderberry extract of deceiving consumers with misleading label statements, denied the motion as to a California class bringing claims for violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) because the claims are barred due to a previous California suit, and denied a defense motion to exclude the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses.
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September 16, 2025
ST. LOUIS — A ladder manufacturer secured a summary judgment award after a Missouri federal judge found that a man’s expert was unqualified to render an opinion on a manufacturing defect under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.