We want to point out the cogent Comments by Lawyers for Civil Justice to the Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules in response to the Request for Comments on the Committee’s proposed amendment to Federal Rule of Evidence 702. Readers may know that LCJ is a national coalition of corporations, law firms, and defense trial lawyer
Experts
New ILR White Paper on Expert Evidence
By Sean Wajert on
For our readers interested in issues surrounding expert testimony, Daubert challenges, and potential reform of Federal Rule of Evidence 702, let us point out a recent piece by ILR, entitled Fact or Fiction: Ensuring The Integrity Of Expert Testimony. The paper outlines the state of expert evidence standards around the country, explores key issues…
Absence of Expert Opinion Dooms Device Claim
By Sean Wajert on
Posted in Drug and Device, Experts
It is a little surprising, but there continue to be cases in which plaintiffs allege a product was defective, litigate for a long time, but do not produce an expert opinion to that effect. If the product is at all complex, a jury should not be permitted to guess that the product was defective just
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Maryland Adopts Daubert Test
By Sean Wajert on
Posted in Drug and Device, Experts
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.
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