Opinion ID: 164099
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: daughter’s accutane use

Text: Ms. Gray believes the trial court committed reversible error by excluding her daughter’s testimony. Ms. Gray’s pretrial brief indicates her daughter would have testified she took her mother’s Accutane for a few weeks to “clear up” her skin before a formal dance, and experienced feelings of depression during this time which subsided when she quit taking the medication. As previously discussed, trial courts may exclude otherwise admissible evidence if it finds the “danger of ... confusion of the issues” or considerations of “undue delay, waste of time, [and] needless presentation of cumulative evidence” substantially outweigh its probative value. Fed. R. Evid. 403. Here, to prove Accutane causes depression, Ms. Gray introduced reports from at least 2,000 patients who experienced psychiatric side effects while taking Accutane. Testimony indicated one third of those patients “got better once the drug was stopped.” While Ms. Gray’s daughter’s experience with Accutane may have buttressed the reports, the proposed testimony offered substantively little to the evidence already before the jury. Moreover, we believe it likely the testimony would have resulted in a “trial within a trial,” thereby confusing the issues and needlessly wasting time. Roche undoubtedly would have contested whether Ms. -20- Gray’s daughter actually experienced depression and whether the alleged depression could have been attributed to another source. These questions may have required a substantial digression into her medical and psychiatric history, as well as additional expert witness testimony. Therefore, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the evidence under Rule 403.