Confronting Experts Whose Opinions Are Neither Supported nor Directly Contradicted by Scientific Literature

In Florida courtrooms, experts can give their opinions without having to back them up with scientific studies. This means that an expert can claim something like a certain chemical causes cancer, even without any evidence to prove it. This can make it difficult for juries to decide what to believe. For example, if a famous cancer doctor says a chemical causes cancer, but doesn’t have any scientific studies to prove it, the jury has to decide if they believe him or not. This can be tricky and isn’t always fair. In Florida, when a lawyer needs to challenge an expert’s testimony, they can try to get it excluded, cross-examine the expert, or use their own expert to disagree. However, there are obstacles to each approach. Florida law allows experts to give their personal opinions based on their experience and training, so it may be hard to exclude their testimony. Plus, if the expert says they didn’t need to look at any literature because of their own experience, it can be tough to challenge them. Even using your own expert to disagree might not be allowed in some cases. Sometimes, it can be confusing and not very helpful to have a distinction between opinions that have to pass a scientific test and those that are just based on a person’s own thoughts. For example, in one court case, an expert’s opinion about when a patient’s cancer spread was questioned because they used scientific studies to form their opinion. But if the expert had just relied on their own experience, their opinion might have been okay without needing a scientific test. This means that if an expert only goes by their own intuition and ignores scientific studies, it’s harder for someone to argue against their opinion. In the Tursi case, an ophthalmologist was allowed to give an opinion that a patient’s cataracts were caused by exposure to certain chemicals, even though there was no scientific evidence to support this. This raises the question of whether purely opinion-based testimony should be considered “new or novel” under the law. Similar issues have arisen in cases where experts have claimed that a plaintiff developed fibromyalgia as a result of an automobile accident, despite the unknown causes of fibromyalgia. This has led to differing opinions from different courts. In a legal case, two different district courts had different opinions on whether an expert’s opinion on the cause of a patient’s fibromyalgia was admissible. One district court allowed the opinion because it was based on the expert’s clinical experience, while the other district court disagreed and said that there was no scientific support for the opinion. The district courts couldn’t agree, so the case was sent to the Florida Supreme Court for a decision. There are two court cases about challenging an opponent’s expert in a lawsuit. The Marsh analysis makes more sense and is better for challenging an expert. If you can’t exclude the expert, you can try cross-examination or using your own expert. It can be hard to challenge an expert if there is no literature supporting or contradicting their opinion. If the opposing expert didn’t look at any literature, it’s difficult to show the jury that there is no literature on the topic. You may have to try and get this information in front of the jury through your own expert, but it’s not easy. In Florida, lawyers have limitations on how they can support their own expert witnesses in court. They can’t refer to literature or ask about the absence of literature to back up their expert’s opinion. This can be tricky, especially when experts are giving opinions without scientific evidence. It can give one expert an advantage over the other. So basically, sometimes in a court case, an expert witness might say something that’s hard to prove wrong, like saying something causes cancer. It can be tough for a lawyer to argue against it. But if you can’t get the expert kicked out of the case, there are still some things you can do to challenge their opinion and give yourself a chance to win. If the opposing expert has no scientific evidence to back up their opinion, you can ask them if they have done any research to support their claims. If they haven’t, you can let them know that you will ask them about it during the trial, which can make them look bad in front of the jury. You can also prepare your own expert to address the lack of evidence. None of these strategies are guaranteed to work, but they are worth considering. In Florida, lawyers have to be careful when dealing with cases about diseases and causation. The rules and case law there make it tricky to challenge expert opinions. Lawyers should focus on scrutinizing the opposing expert’s opinions and be prepared to confront them at trial. It’s important to be aware of the obstacles and prepare accordingly. The Frye test is a legal rule that says expert opinions based on scientific principles must be widely accepted in the field. This means the science behind the opinion must be well-known and agreed upon by experts. In some court cases in Florida, this test is used to decide if an expert’s opinion should be allowed as evidence. Experts who rely on scientific literature to form their opinions may be subject to the Frye test. This means their opinions must be backed up by widely accepted scientific research. If an expert can’t show that their opinion is based on accepted scientific principles, it may not be allowed as evidence in court. Neil D. Kodsi is a lawyer at a law firm in Miami who specializes in toxic tort and products liability cases. He got his B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his J.D. from Wake Forest University.

Source: https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-journal/confronting-experts-whose-opinions-are-neither-supported-nor-directly-contradicted-by-scientific-literature/