Opinion ID: 3205926
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Dr. Infante

Text: The district court struck Dr. Infante’s general causation report and testimony on grounds that Dr. Infante’s opinions were based on an unreliable methodology and left too great an analytical gap between the underlying data and his opinions. The district court reasoned that: (1) Dr. Infante relied on studies of benzene, a known carcinogen, for the proposition that exposure to benzene can cause AML, when the relevant issue in the case was whether exposure to gasoline containing benzene can cause AML; 1 and (2) Dr. Infante’s methodology failed as to those gasoline-specific studies upon which he did rely because he: (a) relied on studies that did not isolate gasoline exposure or that did not provide exposure metrics; (b) relied on studies that did not exhibit statistically significant results; (c) relied on studies that did not examine AML; and (d) cherry-picked data from studies and failed to explain contrary results that belied the reliability of his methodology. Dr. Infante testified at the Daubert hearing. Following the hearing, the district court issued a lengthy Order containing an extremely thorough and well-reasoned analysis detailing its reasons for striking Dr. Infante’s testimony. The district court did not question Dr. Infante’s expert qualifications, but found that Dr. Infante’s general causation opinions were not grounded in a reliable methodology because he relied on multiple studies that did not reliably support his conclusions. The district court ultimately determined that there was too great an analytical gap between the 1 Dr. Infante’s assumption in his report was that “Mr. Burst was exposed to gasoline containing an average of 2.0% benzene between 1958 and 1971.” R. at 7158. In granting Defendants’ Motion to exclude Dr. Infante, the district court found that the benzene concentration of gasoline to which Mr. Burst could have been exposed “may have ranged from under 1% to as high as 4% or 5% between 1958 and 1971.” R. at 8031. These low levels of concentration support a finding that it was not an abuse of discretion for the district court to distinguish between exposure to gasoline containing benzene and exposure to pure benzene. 6 Case: 15-30592 Document: 00513516686 Page: 7 Date Filed: 05/23/2016 No. 15-30592 underlying data and the opinions offered by Dr. Infante. The district court did not abuse its discretion in this regard. We recognize that this Court does not require “an expert [to] back his or her opinion with published studies that unequivocally support his or her conclusions.” Knight, 482 F.3d at 354 (citations omitted). “Nonetheless, the expert’s testimony must be reliable at each and every step or else it is inadmissible.” Id. at 354-55. “District courts must carefully analyze the studies on which experts rely for their opinions before admitting their testimony.” Id. at 355 (citing Joiner, 522 U.S. at 146-47). Here, it was within the district court’s discretion to conclude that the body of evidence upon which Dr. Infante relied was not sufficient to support his general causation opinions. The majority of Dr. Infante’s report was devoted to benzene exposure, rather than gasoline exposure. As for the gasoline-specific literature upon which Dr. Infante did rely, the district court noted that a number of the studies did not isolate exposure to gasoline or did not provide the exposure metrics, did not exhibit statistically significant results or indicate a positive association between gasoline exposure and AML, and did not specifically examine AML as opposed to other forms of leukemia. We cannot say that the district court’s assessment of the evidence in this respect was clearly erroneous. Nor can we conclude that the district court abused its discretion in determining that the studies relied upon by Dr. Infante were insufficient to support his conclusion that benzene-containing gasoline, which Plaintiff alleges caused Mr. Burst’s injury, would cause the same particular injury in the general population. For the reasons stated by the district court, we affirm the exclusion of Dr. Infante’s opinions.