Opinion ID: 2133433
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: adoption of daubert standards

Text: Agland urges this court to again consider adopting the test set forth in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993), for the evaluation of expert opinion testimony. This issue is not necessary for our disposition of the present appeal. However, an appellate court may, at its discretion, discuss issues unnecessary to the disposition of an appeal where those issues are likely to recur during further proceedings. Daniels v. Allstate Indemnity Co., 261 Neb. 671, 624 N.W.2d 636 (2001). We decline to discuss Agland's assignments of error with respect to contributory negligence and damages. We do, however, find it appropriate to discuss the standards that should be applied to the expert testimony proffered on retrial. The most significant recent developments in the area of evaluating expert opinion testimony have resulted from the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Daubert, supra . In that case, the Supreme Court held that the general acceptance test for the admissibility of testimony about scientific evidence, as set out in Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C.Cir.1923), had been superseded by the adoption of the Federal Rules of Evidence. Daubert, supra . The Supreme Court rejected the Frye test and redefined the standard for the admission of expert testimony in the federal courts. Id. See, also, General Electric Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 118 S.Ct. 512, 139 L.Ed.2d 508 (1997). Moreover, the Federal Rules of Evidence have recently been amended to incorporate and codify the Daubert standards. See Fed.R.Evid. 701 to 703. Most states with evidentiary rules modeled after the Federal Rules of Evidence have adopted the Daubert standards. See, generally, Phillips v. Industrial Machine, 257 Neb. 256, 597 N.W.2d 377 (1999) (Gerrard, J., concurring) (citing cases and noting that 27 states had adopted Daubert standards). See, also, People v. Shreck, 22 P.3d 68 (Colo.2001) (abrogating Frye test in favor of Daubert reliability standards). This court, however, has previously rejected the adoption of Daubert and continued to rely on the Frye test. See, State v. Carter, 246 Neb. 953, 524 N.W.2d 763 (1994), overruled on other grounds, State v. Freeman, 253 Neb. 385, 571 N.W.2d 276 (1997); State v. Dean, 246 Neb. 869, 523 N.W.2d 681 (1994), overruled on other grounds, State v. Burlison, 255 Neb. 190, 583 N.W.2d 31 (1998). The Daubert standards require proof of the scientific validity of principles and methodology utilized by an expert in arriving at an opinion in order to establish the evidentiary relevance and reliability of that opinion. Under Daubert, supra, when faced with a proffer of expert scientific testimony, a trial judge must determine at the outset whether the expert is proposing to testify to (1) scientific knowledge that (2) will assist the trier of fact to understand or determine a fact in issue. This entails a preliminary assessment whether the reasoning or methodology underlying the testimony is scientifically valid and whether that reasoning or methodology properly can be applied to the facts in issue. Daubert, supra . The Court in Daubert also set out a list of considerations that a trial court may use to evaluate the validity of scientific testimony. These include: (1) whether the theory or technique can be, and has been, tested; (2) whether the theory or technique has been subjected to peer review and publication; (3) the known or potential rate of error, and the existence and maintenance of standards controlling the technique's operation; and (4) the general acceptance of the theory or technique. Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993). Thus, the Court did not sweep away the Frye test, but simply determined that it was to be one of a myriad of possible considerations in determining the validity of evidence. See Phillips, supra . In Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137, 119 S.Ct. 1167, 143 L.Ed.2d 238 (1999), the Supreme Court determined that Daubert 's general holding, setting forth the trial judge's general `gatekeeping' obligation, applies not only to testimony based on `scientific' knowledge, but also to testimony based on `technical'  and `other specialized' knowledge. 526 U.S. at 141, 119 S.Ct. 1167. The Court in Kumho made it clear that the Daubert standards were to apply, not only to scientific knowledge, but to all types of expert testimony that are admitted pursuant to Fed.R.Evid. 702. In Carter, supra, this court discussed two reasons for continued adherence to the Frye test: (1) that the Daubert standards were relatively undeveloped and uncertain and (2) that Daubert might fail to exclude unreliable junk science. These concerns were, at the time, entirely reasonable. The experience of the intervening years, however, has put those concerns to rest. See Phillips v. Industrial Machine, 257 Neb. 256, 597 N.W.2d 377 (1999) (Gerrard, J., concurring). In that time, Daubert has become the majority rule and Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C.Cir.1923) has become an ever-shrinking minority view. Given the number of jurisdictions that have adopted the Daubert standards and the extensive development of the Daubert standards in the state and federal courts, it can no longer be said that the nature and implications of Daubert are unknown. See Phillips, supra . In fact, to the extent that this consideration is still relevant, it militates in favor of adopting the Daubert standards, as Nebraska courts risk losing the benefit of helpful and persuasive authority from other jurisdictions on newly presented evidentiary issues by their continued reliance on a test that is being increasingly removed from the jurisprudential mainstream. See Phillips, supra . Furthermore, [t]he concern about junk science expressed in Carter, supra, now also weighs in favor of adopting the Daubert/Kumho Tire standards. The gatekeeper function exercised by trial courts under the Daubert/Kumho Tire analysis is, in fact, a more effective means of excluding unreliable expert testimony than is the Frye test. The experience in jurisdictions which have adopted the Daubert standards suggests that the admission of so-called junk science evidence is a minimal risk. Phillips, 257 Neb. at 273, 597 N.W.2d at 388-89 (Gerrard, J., concurring), citing State v. Coon, 974 P.2d 386 (Alaska 1999). As one writer has noted: To say that Daubert is less restrictive of expert evidence, to say that it opens the door for the introduction of expert evidence that would not have been admissible under the Frye test, is not to say that Daubert 's test is an easier test. It may be more lenient in that it allows moreand more novelscience into evidence, but it can be much more difficult in that the Daubert test can require a more exacting, expensive, and time consuming foundation. .... On the one hand, more science comes in. Science does not have to be generally accepted by other scientists to be admissible in court; the universe of admissible science is expanded by doing away with the general acceptance requirement. On the other hand, less science comes in. The trial judge is to act as gatekeeper and is to scrutinize carefully the proffered scientific evidence and to keep out what is not good science. The universe of science actually admitted may be contracted by the close scrutiny judges are supposed to give this evidence. While it may be that most science generally accepted in the relevant scientific community will be good science, it is not necessarily so. G. Michael Fenner, The Daubert Handbook: The Case, Its Essential Dilemma, and Its Progeny, 29 Creighton L.Rev. 939, 953 (1996). Placing the focus on reliability, rather than general acceptance, may have unexpected but not undesirable results. For instance, a court may find that application of the Daubert standards results in the admissibility of new theories or techniques, where the court is satisfied that the expert testifying has presented foundation sufficient to demonstrate the reliability of the scientific analysis supporting his or her opinion. On the other hand, a court may find that evidence that had previously been admitted with little discussion is no longer satisfactory, where the reliability of that evidence has been appropriately challenged. In this regard, the flexibility of the Daubert standards has a clear advantage over the Frye test, as the rigid application of Frye results in evidence which has once met with judicial approval no longer being novel, and thus no longer subject to foundational inquiry under Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C.Cir.1923). Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993), on the other hand, does not require that courts reinvent the wheel each time that evidence is adduced, but it does permit the re-examination of certain types of evidence where recent developments raise doubts about the validity of previously relied-upon theories or techniques. In other words, once an issue is determined under Frye, it is closed to further Frye analysis because it is no longer novel. Daubert, on the other hand, permits re-examination of the issue if the validity of the prior determination can be appropriately questioned. Moreover, the flexibility of Daubert does not require that the validity of a theory or technique be determined solely by the general acceptance of a particular field that may prove to be too accepting. As one writer has stated: Despite some dicta in Daubert stating that the test embodied by Rule 702 is a more liberal one than Frye, when compared to the general acceptance test, the Daubert test requires more from some fields and less from others depending on the state of the knowledge being offered. Frye asks whether something is generally accepted. Daubert asks whether it is dependable. These are different questions. Often they will produce the same answer. That happens when the basis of knowledge is weak and a field recognizes it is weak, or when the basis of knowledge is sound and a field recognizes it is sound. But Daubert is more liberal when the expert evidence is solid, but on the cutting edge, and therefore not yet generally accepted.... On the other hand, Frye is more liberal when what is offered is unsound expert evidence that nevertheless has become generally accepted in its field. This is the category that judges have encountered in numerous cases in the wake of Daubert, and found themselves puzzled about why a supposedly more liberal standard was leading them toward exclusion of evidence that long had been admitted without question. The Frye test required faith to be placed in various fields and their practitioners, and inevitably made the courts more accepting of speculative, pseudo and sloppy science, but it had the appearance of being easier for judges to administer. Daubert requires that fields justify their claims, and this places a heavy cognitive burden on judges. The essential requirement of Daubert and its progeny is that to avoid exclusion, experts must offer the courts more than unsupported assertions; they must offer evidence about the basis of their asserted expertise sufficient to enable a judge to conclude that their expert testimony will provide dependable information to the factfinder. David L. Faigman et al., How Good is Good Enough?: Expert Evidence Under Daubert and Kumho, 50 Case W. Res. L.Rev. 645, 656-57 (2000). Frye -like tests allow judges to piggyback their decisions onto someone else's judgment of whether the proffered evidence was sufficiently valid to be admitted. See Michael J. Saks, The Aftermath of Daubert: An Evolving Jurisprudence of Expert Evidence, 40 Jurimetrics J. 229 (2000). The Frye test permit[s] judges to ask whether an asserted expertise [i]s believed valid by enough asserted experts. If enough of them [think] sothat is, if the asserted expertise enjoys `general acceptance'then a court [i]s justified in concluding that the proffered testimony [i]s valid. Saks, supra at 230. In addition to its better known and more obvious defects, the Frye test suffers from a special paradox: because less rigorous fields will reach a state of general acceptance more readily than more rigorous fields, courts employing Frye may more readily admit the offerings of less dependable fields and less readily admit the offerings of more dependable fields. See id. While these distinctions between Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C.Cir.1923), and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993), are significant, they should not be taken to mean that Daubert has worked a sea change in evidence law. A review of the case law after Daubert shows that rejection of expert testimony is the exception rather than the rule. See Fed.R.Evid. 702 advisory committee's note. In most instances, obviously, that which is reliable will be generally accepted, and vice versa. Only by permitting the trial court to conduct the gatekeeper function for the reliability of expert testimony, however, can we ensure that reliable evidence is presented not just in most, but in all instances. Moreover, as the U.S. Supreme Court noted in Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137, 119 S.Ct. 1167, 143 L.Ed.2d 238 (1999), this gatekeeper function for the trial court retains its utility and imperative regardless of whether the testimony at issue is scientific or otherwise. The evidentiary rationale that underlies the Daubert gatekeeping responsibility is not limited to scientific knowledge. As the Court stated, it would prove difficult, if not impossible, for judges to administer evidentiary rules under which a gatekeeping obligation depended upon a distinction between scientific knowledge and technical or other specialized knowledge. There is no clear line that divides the one from the others.... Neither is there a convincing need to make such distinctions. Experts of all kinds tie observations to conclusions through the use of what Judge Learned Hand called general truths derived from ... specialized experience. [Learned] Hand, Historical and Practical Considerations Regarding Expert Testimony, 15 Harv. L.Rev. 40, 54 (1901). And whether the specific expert testimony focuses upon specialized observations, the specialized translation of those observations into theory, a specialized theory itself, or the application of such a theory in a particular case, the expert's testimony often will rest upon an experience confessedly foreign in kind to [the jury's] own. Ibid. The trial judge's effort to assure that the specialized testimony is reliable and relevant can help the jury evaluate that foreign experience, whether the testimony reflects scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge. Kumho Tire Co., 526 U.S. at 148-49, 119 S.Ct. 1167. Despite the evident wisdom of applying the trial court's gatekeeper function to all varieties of specialized expert testimony, Nebraska's reliance on the Frye test and the limitation of that test to scientific evidence precludes the trial court from acting as gatekeeper where technical or other specialized knowledge is concerned. Phillips v. Industrial Machine, 257 Neb. 256, 597 N.W.2d 377 (1999) (Gerrard, J., concurring). Adoption of the Daubert standards, on the other hand, both encourages the trial court to act as gatekeeper and places that function in the context of a sensible and uniform scheme for the evaluation of all types of expert opinion testimony. Id. One commentator cogently noted: [B]efore the Daubert/Joiner/Kumho trilogy, courts and lawyers strove mightily to force the analysis of scientific evidence into the legalistic rather than the scientific framework. The Frye rule, which Daubert displaced, focused on general acceptance as a surrogate for determining scientific validity, a test steeped in the tradition of precedent, authority, and opinion as evidence. ALI-ABA, Course of Study on Products Liability (2000), Bert Black, Lewis Carroll Meets the Law, or How to Use the Daubert Trilogy to Slay the Jabberwock of Jargon, 277 at 284. We are convinced that by shifting the focus to the kind of reasoning required in scienceempirically supported rational explanationthe Daubert/Joiner/Kumho Tire Co. trilogy of cases greatly improves the reliability of the information upon which verdicts and other legal decisions are based. Because courts and juries cannot do justice in a factual vacuum, the better information the fact finders have, the more likely that verdicts will be just. See id. Indeed, though the scientific method may not be an appropriate standard for all experts, the fundamental commonsense requirements of rational explanation and empirical support should apply to all experts. Id. We are persuaded that Nebraska should join the majority of jurisdictions that have already concluded that the Daubert standards provide a more effective and just means of evaluating the admissibility of expert opinion testimony. Use of these standards may initially place more demands on trial and appellate courts, but will also permit those courts to ensure that juries in Nebraska are presented with expert testimony that is theoretically and methodologically reliable. We therefore hold prospectively, for trials commencing on or after October 1, 2001, that in trial proceedings, the admissibility of expert opinion testimony under the Nebraska rules of evidence should be determined based upon the standards first set forth in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993). Specifically, we hold that in those limited situations in which a court is faced with a decision regarding the admissibility of expert opinion evidence, the trial judge must determine at the outset, pursuant to Neb. Evid. R. 702, whether the expert is proposing to testify to (1) scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge that (2) will assist the trier of fact to understand or determine a fact in issue. This entails a preliminary assessment whether the reasoning or methodology underlying the testimony is valid and whether that reasoning or methodology properly can be applied to the facts in issue. We stress, however, that in making this preliminary assessment, the trial judge has the discretion both to avoid unnecessary Neb.Rev.Stat. § 27-104 (Reissue 1995) hearings, where the reliability of an expert's methods is stipulated to or properly taken for granted, and to require appropriate proceedings in the less usual or more complex cases, where cause for questioning the expert's reliability arises. See Kumho Tire v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137, 119 S.Ct. 1167, 143 L.Ed.2d 238 (1999). In so holding, we also note that once the validity of the expert's reasoning or methodology has been satisfactorily established, any remaining questions regarding the manner in which that methodology was applied in a particular case will generally go to the weight of such evidence. See State v. Porter, 241 Conn. 57, 698 A.2d 739 (1997). Vigorous cross-examination, presentation of contrary evidence, and careful instruction on the burden of proof remain the traditional and appropriate means of attacking evidence that is admissible, but subject to debate. See Daubert, supra .