Opinion ID: 149189
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Application of Standards to Dr. Suhrbier's Testimony

Text: Hendrix also objects to the district court's exclusion of Dr. Suhrbier's testimony. Dr. Suhrbier, G.P.'s treating physician, sought to testify as an expert witness under Rule 702. In order to be admitted into evidence, Dr. Suhrbier's opinions must also be based on a scientifically reliable methodology under Daubert. See United States v. Henderson, 409 F.3d 1293, 1299-1300 (11th Cir.2005). Dr. Suhrbier purported to both perform a differential etiology and to look for a unifying theory to explain G.P.'s ASD and syringomyelia. Like Dr. Hoffman, he concluded that the most likely cause of [G.P.]'s autism and syringomyelia was the trauma that he sustained in that motor vehicle accident in April of 2002. Unlike Dr. Hoffman, however, Dr. Suhrbier did not even attempt to provide any evidence to support a general causal link between traumatic brain injury and ASD. He presented no medical literature, described no relevant physiological process, and provided no other support for his conclusion that traumatic brain injury can cause autism. Based on the Daubert requirements for admitting expert testimony, we cannot say that the district court abused its discretion in determining that there was too great an analytical gap between Dr. Suhrbier's evidence and conclusions regarding G.P.'s ASD diagnosis to submit those conclusions to the jury. [14]