Opinion ID: 1153595
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: conclusion

Text: For the reasons stated, I would hold that expert testimony causally linking trauma to fibromyalgia is subject to, and fails, the Frye test. Our precedent dictates that this underlying scientific principle of causation is subject to the Frye test. Whether trauma can ever cause fibromyalgia is a subject of much debate, and therefore the view that it can has not been generally accepted. I cannot agree with the majority that the jury should be left to sort out contentious and complex disputes about medical causation where experts in the relevant scientific community have been unable to agree. See Brim, 695 So.2d at 272 ([W]e have expressly held that the trial judge must treat new or novel scientific evidence as a matter of admissibility (for the judge) rather than a matter of weight (for the jury).); Ramirez, 651 So.2d at 1168 (recognizing that [t]he trial judge has the sole responsibility to determine the general acceptance of both the underlying scientific principle and the testing procedures used to apply that principle to the facts at hand). Contrary to our admonition in Stokes, 548 So.2d at 193-94 ([A] courtroom is not a laboratory. . . . If the scientific community considers a procedure or process unreliable for its own purposes, then the procedures must be considered less reliable for courtroom use.), the majority decision turns the courtroom into a laboratory. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent. WELLS and BELL, JJ., concur.