In Rochkind v. Stevenson, 2020 WL 5085877 (Md. Aug. 28, 2020), the Maryland Court of Appeals (that is the state’s highest court), recently adopted the Daubert standard for assessing the reliability of proffered expert opinion evidence. This is the test used in federal courts and most other states, but not all. The court’s move away from the Frye test reflected a “jurisprudential drift” over the past 40 or so years towards more careful scrutiny of expert evidence in an effort to prevent unreliable science from entering into a trial. 471 Md. 1, 5, 236 A.3d 630, 633..
The case involved the claim that plaintiff’s Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) had been caused by her childhood exposure to lead. She sued the landlord of the apartment where she had lived, and sought to rule out other risk factors, such as a family history of learning disabilities, through expert testimony. The landlord challenged the reliability of the proposed expert’s causation methodology and conclusions.