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Mealey's Daubert

  • March 09, 2026

    Pa. Federal Judge Finds Economic Expert Testimony Allowed In Slip-And-Fall Case

    HARRISBURG, Pa. — A Pennsylvania federal judge ruled that experts retained by a woman who fell in a resort’s parking lot can testify about her projected future economic losses, rejecting efforts by the resort to find their testimony inadmissible.

  • March 09, 2026

    Judge Rules Expert Can Opine On Whether Brothers Felt Pain In Workplace Accident

    WILMINGTON, Del. — An equipment rental company has reached a confidential settlement with the parents of two brothers who were killed when an aerial lift used to repair cell phone towers tipped over; the agreement came a week after a judge in a Delaware state court denied motions for summary judgment filed by the other defendants and ruled that an expert on conscious pain and suffering could testify.

  • March 06, 2026

    Causation Experts Limited In MDL Alleging Toxins In Baby Food Leads To ASD/ADHD

    SAN FRANCISCO — The judge overseeing the multidistrict litigation involving cases filed by parents who allege that their children developed autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) due to consumption of certain baby foods containing toxic heavy metals ruled that some opinions by the parents’ general causation experts are inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.

  • March 05, 2026

    Discovery Deadline Extended Again In Hurricane Coverage Dispute Involving LIGA

    BATON ROUGE, La. — After previously granting homeowners’ motion to extend discovery to provide expert disclosures, a Louisiana federal magistrate judge in a docket-only order granted a motion by the Louisiana Insurance Guaranty Association (LIGA) to further extend discovery in the homeowners’ Hurricane Ida coverage dispute with an insurance carrier participating in the U.S. government’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and LIGA.

  • March 05, 2026

    Attorney Says Faulty Quotes Not AI’s Fault In Valve Patent Troll Trial

    SEATTLE — An attorney for a man accused by Valve Corp. of being a “patent troll” responded to a Washington federal judge’s order to show cause, arguing that fake quotations were caused by the error of a contract attorney; on the same day, the judge entered $11,500 in attorney fees against the defense for fees incurred during a discovery dispute before a recently completed trial.

  • March 02, 2026

    Judge Won’t Bar Daubert Exclusion Questioning, But Asbestos Soil Expert Is Out

    NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge in Louisiana said she would not impose a blanket prohibition on trial questions about whether experts were excluded in other asbestos cases but warned counsel not to go into excessive detail about the rulings in those cases.  Days earlier, the judge said a shipyard should have known that it had a duty to preserve soil samples tested by an expert who had yet to be deposed in an asbestos case rapidly approaching trial, excluding the expert and any expert opinions relying on her soil testing.

  • March 02, 2026

    Gun, Drug Trafficking Experts Can Testify In Florida Federal Case, Judge Says

    MIAMI — Testimony from experts retained by the federal government will help a jury to understand evidence relating to a machinegun conversion device and “coded language that is frequently used in the enterprise of drug trafficking,” a Florida federal magistrate judge ruled, denying motions to exclude filed by two men facing trial on drug and gun charges.

  • February 27, 2026

    Judge Gives Reasons For Juul Antitrust Class Ruling, Allows Reconsideration

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge on Feb. 26 issued a ruling providing the reasoning behind a previously issued short-form order certifying several classes of purchasers bringing antitrust claims against Juul Labs Inc. (JLI) and Altria Group Inc. for allegedly seeking to monopolize the e-cigarette market, and also granted a defense motion for reconsideration as to time limits on the class.

  • February 27, 2026

    Judge Rules Materials Science Expert Can Testify For Bard In Port Catheter MDL

    PHOENIX — The Arizona federal judge overseeing the multidistrict litigation involving C.R. Bard Inc.’s implanted port catheter (IPC) device denied a motion filed by the plaintiffs to exclude an expert in materials science after finding that the expert properly used a reliable methodology in reaching his conclusions.

  • February 27, 2026

    Retirees File 8th Circuit Appeal In ERISA Pension Actuarial Equivalence Case

    ST. LOUIS — Retirees have filed an Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals challenge to a ruling that ended their putative class Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit actuarial equivalence case by excluding their expert’s testimony and entering summary judgment against them.

  • February 24, 2026

    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 and February 2026 issue of Mealey’s Daubert Report.

  • February 24, 2026

    Judge Nixes Asbestos Experts After Briefing On New Rules, Supreme Court Precedent

    SEATTLE — A federal in Washington judge excluded a pair of asbestos experts and granted summary judgment to two shipyard defendants after the parties briefed her on the impact of the amended Federal Rules of Evidence and a recent U.S. Supreme Court case governing federal jurisdiction.

  • February 24, 2026

    South Dakota High Court Finds Error In Excluding Expert In Malpractice Case

    PIERRE, S.D. — The South Dakota Supreme Court found that a trial court failed to properly consider an expert’s opinions on differential diagnosis under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. and reversed summary judgment granted to a medical center and its doctor in a medical malpractice case.

  • February 24, 2026

    Federal Judge Allows Expert Medical Testimony In Standard Of Care Dispute

    SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A physician’s testimony that a man’s treating medical providers’ decisions during his stay at a hospital, including ordering his transfer to another health facility, violated the standard of care is reliable and will assist the jury, a federal judge in Puerto Rico ruled in denying a motion to exclude.

  • February 24, 2026

    California Appeals Court Rejects Avon’s Challenges To Asbestos Expert Testimony

    LOS ANGELES — A California appellate court affirmed a judgment following a verdict of more than $40.8 million in total compensatory damages and another $10.3 million in punitive damages, saying that it discerned nothing improper in expert testimony about testing that found asbestos in talc or that resulting exposure constituted a cause of a woman’s mesothelioma.

  • February 23, 2026

    Judge Limits Testimony From Plaintiffs’ Experts In Bard Port Catheter MDL

    PHOENIX — The Arizona federal judge overseeing the multidistrict litigation involving C.R. Bard Inc.’s implanted port catheter (IPC) device on Feb. 20 ruled that certain opinions offered by experts retained by the plaintiffs are inadmissible.

  • February 23, 2026

    Fla. Federal Judge: Police Expert Can Testify On Drug Trafficking Practices

    TAMPA, Fla. — A police detective can testify as an expert on drug trafficking and how drug traffickers and dealers act in an upcoming criminal trial in a Florida federal court, a judge ruled Feb. 20, denying a motion to exclude filed by one of the defendants.

  • February 20, 2026

    Causation Experts Can Testify In Bair Hugger Case, Ohio Federal Judge Says

    DAYTON, Ohio — An Ohio federal judge denied a series of motions to exclude experts in a Bair Hugger patient warming device case that had been remanded from a multidistrict litigation and denied a motion for summary judgment after finding that there are genuine material facts in dispute.

  • February 20, 2026

    N.Y. Federal Judge Limits Stairwell Expert From Opining On What Caused Injuries

    NEW YORK — A New York federal judge found that some proposed testimony by an architectural expert retained in an injury case goes beyond his area of expertise and granted a motion to exclude filed by the landlord of the property at issue.

  • February 20, 2026

    Federal Circuit: Judge Rightly Excluded Expert From Input Patent Row

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A plaintiff-appellant and its expert witness failed to grapple with some of the key claim limitations in their infringement analysis, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Feb. 19, affirming a Delaware federal judge’s grant of summary judgment of noninfringement on claims challenging some of the PlayStation line of video game consoles.

  • February 19, 2026

    Ga. Supreme Court: Expert Testimony Properly Admitted, Murder Conviction Affirmed

    ATLANTA — The Georgia Supreme Court upheld a murder conviction, rejecting arguments that the trial court erred in allowing an expert to testify about testing that was done to prove that the fatal gunshot was not self-inflicted.

  • February 19, 2026

    Judge Allows Experts, Certifies Class On Whether UM/UIM Coverage Properly Applied

    PHOENIX — An Arizona federal judge agreed to certify a class action alleging that an insurer underpaid insureds by failing to stack uninsured motorist (UM) or underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage for policyholders who had multivehicle policies and rejected efforts by the insurer to exclude expert testimony on class certification.

  • February 18, 2026

    Federal Circuit Emphasizes Court’s Gatekeeping Role In Affirming Patent Verdict

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Feb. 17 affirmed a Minnesota federal judge’s denial of defendant-appellants’ requests for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) or for a new trial on damages; the panel emphasized that its role on appeal was to determine whether the jury had substantial evidence to support its findings, not to reweigh that evidence.

  • February 18, 2026

    Amicus Urges High Court Review Of Expert Admissibility Standards In Injury Dispute

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) on Feb. 17 filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that it should grant the petition for a writ of certiorari filed by Union Carbide Corp. and an affiliate in a dispute over the correct legal standard for the admissibility of an expert in an ethylene oxide (EtO) injury case because it “raises a profound question about the integrity of our federal justice system—whether trial judges must faithfully enforce Federal Rule of Evidence 702 as a bulwark against unreliable expert testimony, or whether they must sidestep that duty and pass the buck to juries.”

  • February 13, 2026

    Ethylene Oxide Defendants Seek High Court Review Of Expert Admissibility Standards

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Union Carbide Corp. and an affiliate have filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that a lower court applied the incorrect legal standard for the admissibility of an expert under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 in a lawsuit over alleged injuries caused by exposure to ethylene oxide.  The petitioners say that the Supreme Court should hear the case because federal appellate courts are divided over whether challenges to the factual basis of an expert’s opinion “always go to weight, not admissibility.”