Landscape of Expert & Scientific Testimony

The following three Supreme Court cases that modified the long-established rule

on admissibility of expert testimony before a court of law allowed trial court judges to

consider admissibility of expert testimony not only on the standard of general

acceptance but gave these judges the gate keeping role to determine whether such

testimony is reliable, relevant to the case and is grounded in the methods and principles

of a certain field.

In the case of Daubert v. Merrel Dow Pharmaceuticals (1993), it was alleged that

children’s birth defects was caused by their mother’s prenatal ingestion of Bendectin, an

anti-nausea drug sold by Merrell Dow, and an affidavit of an expert who reviewed

scientific literature on the matter and concluded to that effect had been accepted by a

district court. The court disallowed the evidence of eight other experts contradicting

such conclusion on the basis of the general acceptance standard. However, the

Supreme Court ruled that Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence (1975) superceded

the general acceptance test Under this rule, experts are now permitted to testify on

scientific, technical or specialized knowledge, which should be based on methods and

reasoning of science, to guide the judge or jury in understanding the evidence, and

judges are given the role to determine the reliability and relevancy of such expert

testimony to the case.

The same ruling was adapted in the case of General Electric Co v. Joiner (1997).

Plaintiff Joiner alleged that his cancer was caused by the on-the-job exposure to

polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) contained in the coolant and electrical transformers

manufactured by General Electric. Expert evidence on animal studies was offered but
was excluded as evidence because such study from which the expert’s opinions were

based was not similar to the facts in issue and thus not reliable and irrelevant to the

case. The Supreme Court emphasized that under Rule 702 of the Federal Rules, judges

are responsible in determining the admissibility of evidence based on reliability and

relevancy to the facts in issue.

In Kumho Tire Co Ltd v. Carmichael, this involved the exclusion of a tire expert

testimony because the judge, adapting the Daubert ruling, found it unreliable or not

scientific. The Supreme Court ruled that the obligation of judges to determine

admissibility of expert testimony is not only limited to those based on scientific

knowledge but extends to those based on technical and other specialized knowledge.

However, the Court upheld the exclusion of the tire expert testimony, because the

expert was not able to meet the standards used by the same experts who made same

assessments outside the courtroom.

Before 1993, expert testimony based on scientific knowledge is admissible only if

the same is generally accepted (even determined on the basis of the opinion of self-

validating expert) in the relevant scientific community, also known as the Frye test. After

the case of Daubert in 1993, the general acceptance principle of admissibility was

modified to apply the provisions of Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. The new

rule now is that expert testimony may be admitted on matters of scientific, technical or

specialized knowledge if it will help the judge or jury to understand the evidence. Judges

are now given the responsibility to rule the admissibility of expert opinion based on

scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge, which should be reliable and

relevant to the case.

Reference

The Age of Expert Testimony: Science in the Courtroom, Report of a Workshop.

Retrieved 05 September, 2007 from http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10272