Class certification decisions under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure mark a critical stage in any putative class action lawsuit. Rule 23(a) requires plaintiffs to prove, among other things, that “there are...more
An expert witness is not supposed to pick a desired result and then reverse engineer inputs and methods that reach that result. As the Ninth Circuit observed 30 years ago, “[c]oming to a firm conclusion first and then doing...more
Specific personal jurisdiction can be a very straightforward concept. If a plaintiff claims to have been injured by a product that the defendant itself sold directly to plaintiff at a store within the forum state, disputes...more
There are few legal phrases more fun to say than “ipse dixit.” The phrase is most commonly used in motions to exclude experts who base their opinions on nothing more than their own say so...more
It is axiomatic that a plaintiff must offer evidentiary support for each element of her claim in order to survive summary judgment. And a ubiquitous feature of product liability actions is the use of expert witnesses by both...more
A plaintiff who alleges that a product is defective usually has to offer expert testimony in support of that allegation. This should come as no surprise for complex products – if it took a team of scientists and engineers to...more