Source: https://www.defenselitigationinsider.com/2017/10/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 13:14:28+00:00

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On September 25, 2017, the Court of Common Pleas of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia County precluded two of plaintiffs’ experts from testifying in the Brandt v. The Bon-Ton Stores, Inc., et al. asbestos-related talcum powder case, effectively ending the case. Both Sean Fitzgerald and Dr. Ronald Gordon were precluded from offering expert testimony regarding the asbestos content in the Cashmere Bouquet talcum powder at issue.
The Brandt case involved a plaintiff who claimed she developed mesothelioma as a result of exposure to asbestos from using Cashmere Bouquet talcum powder. Defendants moved, in part, to challenge the opinions of plaintiffs’ experts regarding the asbestos content of Cashmere Bouquet on grounds the experts did not employ generally accepted methodologies to support their opinions. During the hearing on the defendants’ challenge, the plaintiffs’ experts both conceded the tests they conducted were insufficient to differentiate between asbestos fibers and cleavage fragments—particles that look similar to asbestos fibers. The plaintiffs argued their experts’ methodologies for testing the asbestos content in Cashmere Bouquet were fodder for cross examination, and the case should proceed to the jury.
After four days of testimony from the plaintiffs’ experts and the defendants’ expert, Dr. Matthew Sanchez, the court issued a nine-page memorandum opinion excluding Mr. Fitzgerald’s and Dr. Gordon’s opinions as unreliable, “inherently unscientific,” and not generally accepted pursuant to the Frye test, which Pennsylvania continues to follow. See Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013, 1014 (D.C. Cir. 1923). The court painstakingly detailed the experts’ methodologies for determining the alleged asbestos content in Cashmere Bouquet, and concluded that while some of the methodologies employed by Mr. Fitzgerald and Dr. Gordon were generally accepted in the scientific community, each expert modified, varied, or deviated from those generally accepted methodologies, making their opinions unreliable under Frye.
Pennsylvania is one of few states that still apply the Frye “general acceptance” test for determining whether an expert’s opinion is admissible. The overwhelming majority of states across the country follow the standard set forth in Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for evaluating admissibility of expert testimony. Under Daubert, an expert’s testimony must be both relevant and reliable; however, unlike the Frye standard, which uses general acceptance as its cornerstone, Daubert does not require or consider whether the methodologies employed by the expert are generally accepted among the scientific community.
According to the Supreme Court of Illinois, merely conducting business within that state is insufficient to satisfy the standards for personal jurisdiction established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Daimler AG v. Bauman, 134 S. Ct. 746 (2014). The Illinois Supreme Court recently explored that issue in Aspen American Insurance Company v. Interstate Warehousing, Inc., where a plaintiff headquarted in Indiana attempted to bring an action in Illinois for damages allegedly caused by the collapse of a warehouse in Michigan. Plaintiff Aspen brought a subrogation action in Cook County, Illinois seeking to recover damages allegedly caused by the collapse of a warehouse near Grand Rapids, Michigan, which was owned by Defendant Interstate Warehousing. The Defendant, which is headquartered in Indiana, operates eight warehouses across the country, one of which is in Joliet, Illinois.
In its pleadings, the Plaintiff sought to rely upon the Defendant’s Joliet warehouse to establish personal jurisdiction in Illinois. In its motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, the Defendant did not dispute that it was doing business in Illinois. Instead, the Defendant argued that the business it was conducting in Illinois was insufficient to subject it to general personal jurisdiction under the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Daimler AG v. Bauman. Relying on Daimler, the Defendant explained that the Plaintiff failed to establish that the Defendant was either domiciled or “at home” in Illinois. The circuit court disagreed, and denied the Defendant’s motion. A divided appellate court affirmed the dismissal denial of the motion to dismiss.
Writing on behalf of a unanimous Court, Justice Burke reversed the lower court decisions, holding that the Plaintiff failed to make a prima facie showing that the Defendant was “essentially at home” in Illinois, as required by Daimler. More specifically, the Court determined that the Plaintiff’s burden was to show that the Defendant was incorporated or had its principal place of business in Illinois, or in the alternative, that the Defendant’s contacts with Illinois were so substantial that an exception was warranted. In making its determination, the Court looked at Perkins v. Benguet Consolidated Mining Co., 342 U.S. 437 (1952), in which the defendant, a Philippines company, was forced to relocate from the Philippines to Ohio during World War II. In that case, the Supreme Court found that Ohio was “the center of the corporation’s wartime activities” and, effectively, a “surrogate for the place of incorporation or head office.” Perkins, 342 U.S. at 448.
This article is Part Four of our Medical Marijuana and the Workplace: Recent Decisions from New England Courts Provide Significant Protections to Medical Marijuana Patient Employees Five-Part Series. See Parts One, Two, and Three for reference.
As the qualified use of medical marijuana to treat illnesses becomes more common and courts become more willing to extend legal protections to medical marijuana patient/employees, workers’ compensation is likely to become another focus of litigation. One potential argument would be that if an employees’ healthcare provider certifies, recommends, or prescribes (depending on the character of the medical marijuana act at issue) the use of medical marijuana as part of a course of treatment, the treatment is reasonable and necessary, and employers and their respective workers’ compensation insurer are therefore responsible for providing it.
Few courts have addressed this issue, but those opinions that exist have tended to require employers to reimburse employees who have incurred workplace injuries and seek reimbursement for medical marijuana that is purchased to treat the underlying injury (as long as they are qualified patients and a workers’ compensation court determines that the treatment is reasonable and necessary). In one of the few cases on the subject, the New Mexico Court of Appeals held that marijuana may be a “reasonable and necessary” medical treatment for a workplace injury, and if a treatment is reasonable and necessary, the employer and its insurer are responsible for paying the bill. See Vialpando v. Ben’s Automotive Services, 2014-NMCA-084, 331 P.3d 975 (N.M. Ct. App.), cert. denied, 331 P.3d 924 (N.M. 2014); see also Lewis v. American Gen. Media, 355 P.3d 850, 856-58 (N.M. App. 2015) (rejecting challenge to reimbursement for medical marijuana under Workers’ Compensation Act based on federal preemption); cf. Maez v. Riley Indus., 347 P.3d 732, 735-37 (N.M. App. 2015) (finding sufficient evidence that medical marijuana was medically necessary).
In Vialpando, the claimant, George Vialpando, injured his back in a work-related accident in 2000 while employed by Ben’s Automotive Services (“Ben’s Automotive”), and was not able to find relief through traditional drugs and treatment. His doctor opined that Mr. Vialpando had “some of the most extremely high intensity, frequency and duration of pain, out of all of the thousands of patients I’ve treated within my seven years practicing medicine.” Thereafter, in 2013, Vialpando was certified by his healthcare providers to become a patient in the New Mexico medical marijuana program. The program allows a qualifying patient to purchase marijuana after having secured a certification from a New Mexico licensed health practitioner that the subject individual is suffering from a debilitating medical condition and that the potential health benefits of the medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the health risks posed by its use.

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