The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed a judge's ruling that excluded an expert who had concluded, based on his judgment, that the "weight of the evidence" supported a conclusion that a particular cancer could be caused by exposure to benzene. The appeals court held that such an opinion satisfies requirements designed to exclude junk science from court.
The NAM filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to review this decision. We argued that scientific expert testimony must be based upon reliable scientific methodology, subject to testing and validation, and not on a witness transforming disparate pieces of scientifically unreliable evidence into a scientifically reliable whole based on the expert witness' claimed weighing of the evidence. Judges serve an important gatekeeping role to counter an aggressive and well-financed plaintiffs' bar that has threatened every segment of the business community with massive liabilities premised on often shaky science. Our brief analyzes in some detail the link between the First Circuit's opinion and doctrinal errors from presentations made at the Coronado Conference in 2003, a symposium weighted heavily toward the interests of the plaintiffs' bar.
On Jan. 9, 2012, the Supreme Court declined to hear this appeal. As this is not a formal opinion on the merits of the case, the issue can come before the Court in another case if the Court agrees to review it.