expert witness, legal action

[ttweed@wildrockies.org (Tony Tweedale)]

  sorry for cross postings.  according to a seminar on c-span, there are two
  cases due for u.s. supreme court decisions this term affecting the
  supreme's progressive '94 daubert decision (9-0 if i recall) on allowing
  expert testimony.  i have heard elsewhere that lower courts are still quite
  variable on what they'll allow, even after daubert.
  
  the simpler & direct challenge to daubert--which expanded what
  testimony/what person can be admitted as expert (ie not just 'published &
  peer reviewed' standard, rather a judge should use some sort of a
  reasonableness standard)--seems to be a G.E. case in which GE is being sued
  by an ex-smoking emplyee w/ lung cancer alleging his expposure to GE's PCBs
  was the cause [note, smoking causes certain types of lung cancer, perhaps
  PCBs cause another type, or perhaps there are other biologic markers to
  differentiate].  plaintiff originally won on allowing medical expert
  testimony, appeal reversed it.  sorry i didn't learn more about the
  arguments being made by either side.
  
  GM is was the original defendant in the other case, alleging they
  negligently located the fuel pump in an '85 model at the rear of the
  engine, causing it to continue feeding fuel when there was a fire (bronco?
  by '86 model year they had moved it to a wheel well) .  a GM engineer
  intimately involved in fuel pump design & location had agreed to a
  judge's/GM's order in an earlier case not to testify about this, but in a
  different judicial jurisdiction (MO, not MI, or vice-versa).  GM is saying
  that since '08, public policy goals cannot overide the full faith & credit
  of a court order, no matter the jurisdiction.  but apparantly "a lot" of
  the supremes in oral argument were quite agitated over the idea of allowing
  one court to dictate another court's orders.  obviously, this aspect is
  much bigger than the expert witness aspect.  i'll try to send to all the
  abstracts of these 2 decisions when i get them from cornell law school's
  service.  any clarifications of this posting to all, please.
  
  
  Tony Tweedale (Causality is a concept not subject to empirical
  demonstration.   -David Hume)