On February 7, 2025, Judge Walker, sitting in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, ruled that the Plaintiff (a subsidiary of a parent company engaged in nationwide talcum powder litigation)...more
In a toxic tort case, plaintiffs must establish general causation. If a substance is incapable of causing the type of injury plaintiff claims, then it certainly didn’t cause theirs. Under Texas law, toxic tort plaintiffs must...more
As Nobel laureate Richard Feynman once observed, “[w]isdom is knowing when to ask the right questions.” A related proposition is that wise jurists know how to identify and focus on the right questions. Motion practice can...more
Court: United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division - In this asbestos action, defendants Atwood & Morrill Co. Inc. and Warren Pumps LLC filed a Daubert motion to exclude, or limit, certain...more
A central tenet of toxicology is that “the dose makes the poison.” Every chemical is toxic if enough of it is consumed, and every chemical has some dose – even if miniscule – at which it poses no significant risk. A chemical...more
The question of whether a particular application of herbicide on one property caused damage on another’s property requires expert testimony. When a plaintiff claims that herbicide drift caused reduced crop yields, it is not...more
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, August 11, 2022 The late Robie Walls brought this asbestos action in early 2020 after a mesothelioma diagnosis. He alleged asbestos exposure from his service...more
Under the now widely-adopted Daubert standard, courts evaluate expert testimony based on the principles and methodology underlying the expert witness’s opinion. Admissibility of expert testimony is not governed by whether the...more
Kovach v. Wheeling & Lake Erie Ry. Co., No. 3:18-CV-02826-JGC, 2021 WL 3774900 (N.D. Ohio Aug. 25, 2021) encourages defense attorneys to challenge experts with tactics other than Daubert, as the court avoided excluding...more
The nature of advocacy makes it hard sometimes for lawyers to focus solely on the outcome and the bottom line result. How a court gets there may not matter much to the prevailing party in the dispute as they celebrate the...more
DC High Court Adopts Daubert Approach to Expert Testimony - In a direct victory for mobile phone manufacturers and service providers, and with implications for any other case involving expert testimony in the District of...more
Manufacturers of products that contained chrysotile asbestos won a major victory in Crane Co. v. DeLisle on Sept. 14, 2016, when Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal (Fourth DCA) reversed a verdict entered against a...more
Adding to the growing body of case law that rejects the so-called “every exposure” theory, a federal court in Louisiana has excluded specific causation opinions of a plaintiffs’ expert who relied on the theory, finding that...more