Opinion ID: 175832
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Clinical Experience

Text: Finally, Dr. Gardner sought to testify on causation based upon his clinical experience as a practitioner. The LeBlanc family correctly notes that the Supreme Court in both Kumho Tire, 526 U.S. at 148–49, and Daubert, 509 U.S. at 592, endorsed expert witness testimony based on personal observation and experience. But personal observation is still subject to the relevancy and reliability requirements of Daubert. Kumho Tire, 526 U.S. at 148–49. Even when an expert is extrapolating from personal experience as a practitioner rather than from reviewing research undertaken by others, “nothing in either Daubert or the Federal Rules of Evidence requires a district court to admit opinion evidence which is connected to existing data only by the ipse dixit of the expert.” Joiner, 522 U.S. at 146. In other words, even Dr. Gardner’s clinical opinion that benzene causes myelofibrosis must have some demonstrable and reliable basis in underlying facts. Here, the district court concluded that Dr. Gardner had no such basis, and the LeBlanc family makes no argument on appeal that there was a factual basis for Dr. Gardner’s opinion. Rather, they point only to his years of experience and the fact that he worked with myelofibrosis patients. Merely having observed myelofibrosis patients, without more, gives no basis for an expert opinion as to the general causal connection between myelofibrosis and benzene—it is not a CLASSIFICATION OF TUM OURS OF HAEM ATOPOIETIC AND LYM PHOID TISSUES 44 (Steven H. Swerdlow et al., World Health Org., Int’l Agency for Research on Cancer, eds., 4th ed. 2008), also suffer from this deficiency. Neither offers any primary scientific support for the proposition that benzene causes myelofibrosis but merely recite the results found in other studies or secondary literature. Moreover, we note that the appellants do not argue that Dr. Gardner actually relied on these texts in generating his opinion. 10 Case: 09-31149 Document: 00511243092 Page: 11 Date Filed: 09/23/2010 No. 09-31149 question as to which clinical experience is likely to provide insight. The Sixth Circuit explained the proper realm of “clinical experience” testimony thus: [I]f one wanted to explain to a jury how a bumblebee is able to fly, an aeronautical engineer might be a helpful witness. Since flight principles have some universality, the expert could apply general principles to the case of the bumblebee. Conceivably, even if he had never seen a bumblebee, he still would be qualified to testify, as long as he was familiar with its component parts. On the other hand, if one wanted to prove that bumblebees always take off into the wind, a beekeeper with no scientific training at all would be an acceptable expert witness if a proper foundation were laid for his conclusions. The foundation would not relate to his formal training, but to his firsthand observations. In other words, the beekeeper does not know any more about flight principles than the jurors, but he has seen a lot more bumblebees than they have. Berry v. City of Detroit, 25 F.3d 1342, 1349–50 (6th Cir. 1994). The inquiry before Dr. Gardner here—whether benzene causes myelofibrosis—requires an epidemiological, scientific basis and is more akin to the mechanisms underlying a bumblebee’s ability to fly than to the fact that bumblebees take off into the wind. It is not a question as to which a clinician’s firsthand observation of patients offers much insight. The district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to allow Dr. Gardner’s conclusion that benzene causes myelofibrosis based on his clinical experience.