Case 3:17-cv-00039-JD Document 176 Filed 09/21/18 Page 1 of 13
MOTION BY THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION TO EXCLUDE THE 

TESTIMONY OF DR. VICTORIA SEITZ 

Case No. 3:17-CV-00039-JD

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1

Background ..................................................................................................................................... 1

Legal Standard ................................................................................................................................ 2

Argument ........................................................................................................................................ 3

I. Dr. Seitz Is Not Qualified as an Expert on the Subject of Whether DLink’s Representations Are Deceptive. .................................................................. 4

II. Dr. Seitz Is Not Qualified as an Expert on the Subject of Consumer 

Expectations Regarding the Security of Their Data or The Security of 

Their Routers and IP Cameras. ............................................................................... 6

III. Dr. Seitz’s Testimony on the Ultimate Issue Is Not Helpful to the Trier of 

Fact. ......................................................................................................................... 7

Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 9

 

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MOTION BY THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION TO EXCLUDE THE 

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TABLE OF AUTHORITIES 

Cases

Bourjaily v. United States, 483 U.S. 171 (1987) ............................................................................ 4 

Brown v. China Integrated Energy Inc., No. CV 11-02559, 2014 WL 12576643, at *6 (C.D. Cal. 

Aug. 4, 2014) .............................................................................................................................. 3 

Clark v. Takata Corp., 192 F.3d 750 (7th Cir. 1999) ..................................................................... 9 

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993) ....................................... 2, 3 

FTC v. U.S. Hotline, 2:93-cv-444 (1994 D. Utah) .......................................................................... 5 

General Electric Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136 (1997) ..................................................................... 3 

Hangarter v. Provident Life & Accident Insurance Co., 373 F.3d 998 (9th Cir. 2004) ................. 3 

Kingsbury v. U.S. Greenfiber, LLC, No. CV 08-00151, 2013 WL 7018657, at *2 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 

5, 2013) ....................................................................................................................................... 8 

Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (1999) .................................................................... 2 

Lust v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 89 F.3d 594 (9th Cir. 1996) ...................................... 3 

Nationwide Transport Finance v. Cass Information Systems, Inc., 523 F.3d 1051 (9th Cir. 2008)

..................................................................................................................................................... 9 

Ollier v. Sweetwater Union High School District, 768 F.3d 843 (9th Cir. 2014)........................... 4 

Salinas v. Amteck of Kentucky, Inc., 682 F. Supp. 2d 1022 (N.D. Cal. 2010) ................................ 8 

Turner v. IBM Consulting Group, No. 97-55343, 1999 WL 49102, at *1, 166 F.3d 1218 (9th Cir. 

Feb. 1, 1999) ............................................................................................................................... 9 

United States v. 87.98 Acres of Land More or Less in the Cty. of Merced, 530 F.3d 899 (9th Cir. 

2008) ........................................................................................................................................... 3 

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United States v. Blum, No. 97-50228, 1999 WL 801513, at *1-2 (9th Cir. 1999) ......................... 8 

United States v. Chang, 207 F.3d 1169 (9th Cir. 2000).......................................................... 2, 6, 8 

Volk v. United States, 57 F. Supp. 2d 888 (N.D. Cal.1999) ............................................................ 4 

Statutes

29 Federal Practice & Procedure Evidence § 6265.2 ................................................................... 10 

29 Federal Practice & Procedure Evidence. § 6284 ..................................................................... 10 

Rules

Civil Local Rule 7-2 ........................................................................................................................ 1 

Federal Rule of Evidence 701 ......................................................................................................... 7 

Federal Rule of Evidence 704 ......................................................................................................... 8 

Federal Rules of Evidence 702 ............................................................................................... 1, 7, 8 

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NOTICE OF MOTION TO EXCLUDE EXPERT TESTIMONY 

On November 8, 2018, at 10:00 a.m., pursuant to Civil Local Rule 7-2, the Federal Trade 

Commission (“Plaintiff,” “FTC,” or the “Commission”) will and hereby does move this Court to 

exclude the testimony of Victoria Seitz, Ph.D. (“Dr. Seitz”) in support of D-Link Systems, Inc. 

(“D-Link”) under Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence and related case law. 

INTRODUCTION 

Dr. Seitz’s testimony must be excluded from the Court’s consideration because Dr. Seitz 

is not an expert in the field in which she offers an opinion. Specifically, Dr. Seitz is not qualified 

by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education to opine about whether D-Link’s 

representations are false or deceptive. Nor is she qualified to opine about consumers’ 

expectations regarding the security of their data in general, or about the security of their wireless 

routers or IP cameras in particular. As such, her conclusions are not reliable and would not be 

helpful to this Court in understanding the evidence or in determining a fact in issue. The Court 

should also exclude Dr. Seitz’s testimony on the separate ground that her testimony is predicated 

on the legal conclusion that D-Link’s representations are neither “false [n]or misleading.” Given 

these extraordinary circumstances, it is appropriate to exclude Dr. Seitz’s testimony, even though 

this will be a bench trial. The FTC should not be required to both refute Dr. Seitz’s unreliable 

and unhelpful testimony and simultaneously present evidence and argument to the Court 

regarding why it should disregard her opinions, because it is clear now that she is unqualified to 

testify and that her conclusions are not helpful to the trier of fact. 

BACKGROUND 

If trial proceeds in this matter, the FTC will establish that D-Link has made various 

promises to consumers that the routers and IP cameras (“D-Link devices”) it markets and sells 

are secure from unauthorized access. These promises are false and misleading. The FTC will 

show that the D-Link devices have many serious, foreseeable, easily-preventable, and undisputed 

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security vulnerabilities that permit unauthorized access to D-Link routers and IP cameras. For 

further information on the FTC’s undisputed proofs, the FTC refers the Court to the Background 

section of the FTC’s Motion for Summary Judgment, filed contemporaneously with this Motion. 

In response to the FTC’s expert proofs on claim interpretation and falsity, D-Link intends 

to sponsor the testimony of Dr. Seitz. If permitted to testify, Dr. Seitz will maintain that she 

 in D-Link’s representations.1

LEGAL STANDARD 

To be admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702, an expert opinion must be “not 

only relevant but reliable.” Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 589 (1993); see 

also Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137, 147 (1999). Reliability means the expert 

witness has “a reliable basis in the knowledge and experience of the relevant discipline.” 

Kumho, 526 U.S. at 149. An expert witness qualified to testify on an analogous subject matter 

still may not be qualified to testify on the relevant subject matter. See United States v. Chang, 

207 F.3d 1169, 1172 n.2 (9th Cir. 2000) (expert in international securities not necessarily expert 

at identifying counterfeit international securities). 

Although Rule 702 “contemplates a broad conception of expert qualifications,” 

Hangarter v. Provident Life & Accident Ins. Co., 373 F.3d 998, 1015 (9th Cir. 2004), the 

requirements are not satisfied by “peripheral contact and mere familiarity” with the subject 

matter on which opinions will be offered. Brown v. China Integrated Energy Inc., No. CV 11-

02559, 2014 WL 12576643, at *6 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 4, 2014) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

The party offering the expert’s opinions has the burden to prove such qualifications. United 

States v. 87.98 Acres of Land More or Less in the Cty. of Merced, 530 F.3d 899, 904 (9th Cir. 

2008); Lust v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 89 F.3d 594, 598 (9th Cir. 1996). An expert opinion 

 

1 McCarron Decl. Ex. 1, Expert Report of Dr. Victoria Seitz (“Seitz Expert Report”) ¶ 15 (July 6, 

2018). 

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may not be based on assumptions of fact without evidentiary support. Gen. Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 

522 U.S. 136, 146 (1997) (“[n]othing in either Daubert or the Federal Rules of Evidence requires 

a district court to admit opinion evidence that is connected to existing data only by the ipse dixit

of the expert. A court may conclude that there is simply too great an analytical gap between the 

data and the opinion proffered.”). The burden of laying the proper foundation for the admission 

of the expert testimony is on the party offering the expert, and admissibility must be shown by a 

preponderance of the evidence. Daubert, 509 U.S. at 592 n.10 (citing Bourjaily v. United States, 

483 U.S. 171, 175-76 (1987)). 

Even though “the Daubert gatekeeping obligation is less pressing in connection with a 

bench trial,” Volk v. United States, 57 F. Supp. 2d 888, 896 n.5 (N.D. Cal.1999), it is nonetheless 

proper for a court to exclude expert testimony when it is unreliable and unsupported by the facts. 

See Ollier v. Sweetwater Union High School Dist., 768 F.3d 843, 860-61 (9th Cir. 2014) 

(affirming exclusion of expert witnesses at a bench trial, where conclusions were not based on a 

rigorous analysis of the facts). 

ARGUMENT 

This Court should exclude the testimony of Dr. Seitz because it is unreliable and not 

helpful to the trier of fact. Dr. Seitz is not qualified by her knowledge or experience to testify as 

expert on (1) whether specific representations are deceptive, or (2) how consumers regard either 

the security of their data or the security of their routers and IP cameras. In addition, because Dr. 

Seitz assumes that all of D-Link’s representations are factually true, her opinions would not 

assist this Court in understanding the evidence or in determining a fact in issue. 

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Moreover, in order to arrive at a conclusion that D-Link’s representations were not 

“false”—indeed, that they were “correct”16—Dr. Seitz would have needed to evaluate D-Link’s 

underlying software security to determine whether the identified claims were accurate. Dr. Seitz 

did not conduct such an evaluation. More importantly, Dr. Seitz expressly disclaimed having the 

requisite expertise in security, which would have been necessary to conduct such an evaluation.17 

Accordingly, the Court should prevent Dr. Seitz from offering any testimony regarding whether 

D-Link’s representations are false or deceptive. 

II. Dr. Seitz Is Not Qualified as an Expert on the Subject of Consumer Expectations 

Regarding the Security of Their Data or The Security of Their Routers and IP 

Cameras. 

D-Link intends to present Dr. Seitz’s testimony in support of its contention that 

consumers “ 18 However, Dr. Seitz lacks the 

knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education to offer opinions on consumer expectations 

regarding the security of their data, or more importantly, their expectations regarding the security 

of their routers or IP cameras. Dr. Seitz’s putative expertise on consumers’ expectations about 

the security of their data is based on “reading lots of articles about data breaches” in June and 

July of 2018, and “reading studies like the Pew research about what consumers expect.”19 At her 

deposition, Dr. Seitz identified three additional bases: (1) she hosted an event about social media 

and security;20 (2) she knows the director of California State University’s Center for Cyber 

Security;21 and (3) she has been the victim of three data breaches.22

 

16 McCarron Decl. Ex. 3, Seitz Dep. 90:2-13. 

17 Id. 58:16-21; 86:10-20; 89:19-90:1; 110:25-111:3; 120:19-121:11; 148:3-19; 168:6-23; 170:7-

17; 173:21-23; 177:11-17; 216:8-19; 239:22-24; 266:7-21; 274:14-275:8. 

18 McCarron Decl. Ex. 1, Seitz Expert Report ¶12.c. 

19 McCarron Decl. Ex. 3, Seitz Dep. 111:5-16. 

20 Id. 112:5-10. Dr. Seitz did not disclose this event about social media and security on her 

curriculum vitae. 

21 Id. 112:11-25. Dr. Seitz testified that she does not teach any courses at the Center for Cyber 

Security. 

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1051, 1058 & 1060 (9th Cir. 2008) (“an expert witness cannot give an opinion as to her legal 

conclusion, i.e., an opinion on an ultimate issue of law”; and “[u]nder either [Rule 701 or Rule 

702], evidence that merely tells the jury what result to reach is not sufficiently helpful to the trier 

of fact to be admissible.”) (emphasis in the original, internal citations and quotation marks 

omitted); see also Turner v. IBM Consulting Grp., No. 97-55343, 1999 WL 49102, at *1, 166 

F.3d 1218 (9th Cir. Feb. 1, 1999) (“Although Federal Rule of Evidence 704 allows such 

opinions, in this case, [the expert’s] testimony would not have assisted the trier of fact in 

understanding the evidence or in determining a fact in issue. Fed.R.Evid. 702.”); Clark v. Takata 

Corp., 192 F.3d 750, 757 (7th Cir. 1999) (holding that in products liability action arising out of 

injuries suffered in automobile rollover, trial court did not abuse its discretion in striking 

testimony of expert who testified that lap belt became unlatched during accident; expert’s 

opinion did not help the jury since he merely assumed the belt became unlatched and had no 

analysis supporting assumption). Whether D-Link deceived consumers when it represented that 

its devices were secure from unauthorized access is precisely the question of fact at issue in this 

case.24 By assuming that D-Link’s statements are true, Dr. Seitz’s testimony would simply 

assume the resolution of this case. The Court should exclude Dr. Seitz’s opinions that 

. These opinions do nothing more for a finder of fact 

than tell it what judgment to reach. 29 Fed. Prac. & Proc. Evid. § 6284 (2d ed.); see also id. § 

6265.2 (opinions in the form of legal conclusions are inadmissible because they do not “help the 

trier of fact” under Rule 702). 

 

24 For the reasons set forth in Section III.A. of the FTC’s Motion for Summary Judgment, the 

FTC carries its burden of proof on the undisputed record. If trial were to proceed, however, 

Defendant’s expert testimony on the legal question of whether D-Link deceived consumers 

would not be helpful to the Court. 

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