Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S.

579 (1993)

Several parents of children born with severe birth defects brought a claim against a pharmaceutical
company which manufactured a drug the mothers had taken while pregnant. The parents alleged the
drug was the cause of their children’s birth defects. The pharmaceutical company filed for summary
judgment stating that there was no scientific evidence supporting the parent’s claim. The company
offered the documentation from an epidemiologist saying that the drug had not been shown to cause
birth defects. The parents offered testimony from eight experts saying that the drug did cause birth
defects. The district court granted the motion for summary judgment and concluded that the parents’
testimonial evidence was inadmissible because it was not generally accepted by the scientific
community (Frye General Acceptance Test), the test and data that the experts used had not been
published or presented for peer review. The parents appealed the district court’s ruling. The appeals
court affirmed the ruling citing Frye. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

The Supreme Court disagreed with the lower courts. In their analysis they discredited the general
acceptance test stating that there was nothing in the Federal Rules of Evidence that requires that
“acceptance” be a prerequisite to admissibility. The court goes on to say that a rigid "general
acceptance" requirement would be at odds with the "liberal thrust" of the Federal Rules and their
"general approach of relaxing the traditional barriers to 'opinion' testimony," and that the general
acceptance test should not be used in federal courts. Instead of using the general acceptance test the
court gives wide discretion to the judge in determining whether expert testimony should be admitted.
The court then addressed the four criteria that should be used to help the judge determine whether the
expert testimony is admissible (1) the judge should consider whether the scientific methods discussed in
the testimony are centered around a testable hypothesis; (2) the rate of error associated with the
method; (3) whether the method has been reviewed by peers; (4) and whether the method is generally
accepted by the scientific community. These are factors that should be taken into consideration,
however all factors do not have to present in order for evidence to be admissible.