January 24, 2024

Garner v. BNSF Railway Company

Plaintiff sued his father’s former employer in a survival and wrongful death action.  Plaintiff alleged that his father’s workplace exposure to toxic chemicals caused non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.  The trial court granted defendant’s motions in limine to exclude plaintiff’s causation experts from trial.  The court found the experts relied on inadequate science and there was an unacceptable analytical gap between the data and the experts’ opinions.  The trial court dismissed the case and the plaintiff appealed.

The Court of Appeal reversed, holding that there is no requirement that a causation expert rely on a specific study or other scientific publication expressing precisely the same conclusion the expert has reached.  In many cases where the available scientific evidence is limited or inconclusive, there will inevitably be some analytical gap between the underlying data and the expert’s opinion. As a result,  the absence of studies or information expressing the expert's precise conclusion is not a valid basis to exclude the expert testimony.  The court further held that the trial court’s gatekeeping role under Sargon Enterprises v. University of Southern California (2012) 55 Cal.4th 747 should not be construed so broadly that the gatekeeper effectively supplants both the expert’s reasonable scientific judgment and the jury’s role.