On June 21, 2022, the Supreme Court declined to review a Ninth Circuit decision that requires trial-court judges to abdicate their gatekeeping duty to keep unreliable expert evidence from ever reaching the jury. The decision was a disappointment for WLF, which filed an amicus brief in the case urging review. The case arose from a lawsuit alleging that exposure to Monsanto’s popular herbicide Roundup caused the plaintiff’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. After hearing expert testimony on causation, the jury awarded the plaintiff $80 million in damages, which was later reduced to $25 million. In its amicus brief, WLF argued that the Ninth Circuit erred by allowing the plaintiff to establish causation on the basis of unreliable expert opinions. As WLF demonstrated, the decision below was merely the latest in a long line of Ninth Circuit decisions that give wide berth to medical-causation experts who say they have performed a scientific analysis but have failed to do so reliably. WLF’s amicus brief was prepared with generous pro bono assistance from Jonathan S. Tam and Matthew P. Steinberg of Dechert LLP.
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