{"id":12638,"date":"2011-01-07T18:03:10","date_gmt":"2011-01-07T23:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=12638"},"modified":"2011-01-07T18:03:10","modified_gmt":"2011-01-07T23:03:10","slug":"tort-reform-2011-true-science-or-pure-mischief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/01\/tort-reform-2011-true-science-or-pure-mischief\/","title":{"rendered":"Tort Reform 2011: True Science or Pure Mischief?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Well, that didn\u2019t take long.\u00a0 In its first week of political life, the new legislature has proposed sweeping \u201ctort reform\u201d legislation<\/a>.\u00a0 The compass of the 30-plus page bill is manifold, embracing punitive damages, fee shifting, product liability claims, and damages caps.\u00a0 What interests me more, however, are proposed changes to the Wisconsin Rules of Evidence governing expert opinion testimony.\u00a0 For years, some have bemoaned Wisconsin\u2019s failure to adopt the so-called Daubert<\/em> rule (see below), an often restrictive, ad hoc standard that ostensibly identifies those \u201creliable\u201d expert methodologies worthy of consideration by the courts.\u00a0 Unreliable methods, of course, are excluded.\u00a0 And while courts and commentators still debate how one goes about reliably identifying reliable methodologies, Wisconsin will apparently make up for lost time by not only adopting Daubert<\/em>, but also go it one better by requiring that expert methodologies be \u201ctrue\u201d as well as reliable.<\/p>\n

True in what sense you ask?\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s unclear, although I concede it has a nice Old Testament ring to it and the idea that courts should use \u201ctrue\u201d evidence is appealing in all senses of that word.\u00a0 While you\u2019re pondering what \u201ctrue\u201d might mean (and I still am), let me offer some background.<\/p>\n

Predictably, the tort reform package embraces the approach found in the current Federal Rules of Evidence on expert testimony, the so-called Daubert<\/em> rule, which emerged from the Supreme Court\u2019s 1994 decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceutics<\/em>.\u00a0 Daubert<\/em> promoted federal judges to the rank of \u201cgatekeeper\u201d and charged them with divining the divide that separates reliable from unreliable expert testimony.\u00a0 After all, who is better qualified for such a task than a liberal arts major with a law degree?\u00a0 In 2000 the Court amended Federal Rule of Evidence 702 to reflect Daubert<\/em> and its progeny: expert opinion testimony must be predicated upon reliable principles and methods that are reliably applied to sufficient facts and data.\u00a0 Moreover, the gatekeeper-judge determines the criteria of reliability and whether it has been met.\u00a0 The Daubert<\/em> standard has been adopted by nearly 40 states, but Wisconsin has thus far chastely resisted its siren song despite numerous entreaties by litigants and legislative sallies.<\/p>\n

My purpose here is not to debate the relative merits of the current Wisconsin rule and the Daubert<\/em> rule.\u00a0 (For the record, I\u2019m no fan of the Daubert<\/em> rule and my encomium to the Wisconsin rule<\/a> is set out in an article in the Marquette Law Review<\/em>.) Do I think the change justified?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 What is mystifying, though, is that in belatedly embracing the majority rule (Daubert<\/em>) the proposed legislation adds the terse, quirky requirement that the expert\u2019s methodology must be true as well as reliable.<\/p>\n

The proposed rule, however, provides no criteria for determining the truth of an expert\u2019s principles or methods or, for that matter, what exactly must be \u201ctrue.\u201d\u00a0 The problem is especially acute in dynamic fields like psychology or genetics which are fluid and continuously evolving.\u00a0 And what happens when we look to accounting or even economics?\u00a0 Might a method be \u201creliable\u201d enough under the federal rule yet fail the test of truth in Wisconsin courts? \u00a0Does \u201ctrue\u201d mean that the judge\u2019s admissibility determination is higher than the traditional preponderance standard found in \u00a7 904.01(1)?\u00a0 More precisely, does it mean that a science must be both \u201ctrue\u201d and reliable, or does it mean only that it must be true that the method is reliable?\u00a0 Only time (and lots of money spent in litigation) will tell.<\/p>\n

A few closing thoughts.\u00a0 First, the legislature should immediately rethink its gloss on the Daubert<\/em> rule.\u00a0 If you want Daubert<\/em>, adopt Daubert<\/em>, not some ill-conceived mutation that purportedly places Wisconsin in the category of a super-duper Daubert<\/em> jurisdiction.\u00a0 This may be good politics but it is bad law and poor public policy. The revision also carries the cost of trashing not only the current Wisconsin rule, but also marginalizing (if not rendering useless) the federal case law that has applied the Daubert<\/em> rule since 1994. \u00a0Second, the new rules will apply with equal force in criminal as well as civil cases.\u00a0 No one is advocating (I hope) separate rules for criminal and civil cases, so some thought should be given to how the change might impact a wide variety of trials.\u00a0 For criminal cases, added time, cost, and complexity are only the most obvious starting points. Clearly too little thought was given to this point or the evidence revisions would not have been dumped into the tort reform package.\u00a0 Finally, what public policy justifies the change? \u00a0Will someone please point out the case law that illustrates the inadequacy of the current rule? I don\u2019t see it.\u00a0 But I do foresee a great deal of litigation in the wake of these ill-starred revisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, that didn\u2019t take long.\u00a0 In its first week of political life, the new legislature has proposed sweeping \u201ctort reform\u201d legislation.\u00a0 The compass of the 30-plus page bill is manifold, embracing punitive damages, fee shifting, product liability claims, and damages caps.\u00a0 What interests me more, however, are proposed changes to the Wisconsin Rules of Evidence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[88,29,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evidence","category-tort-law","category-wisconsin","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}