{"id":1471,"date":"2012-11-21T15:44:28","date_gmt":"2012-11-21T23:44:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bullivant.wpengine.com\/?p=1471"},"modified":"2021-07-26T15:46:10","modified_gmt":"2021-07-26T22:46:10","slug":"citing-the-lack-of-a-daubert-hearing-u-s-ninth-circuit-vacates-10-million-asbestos-verdict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/citing-the-lack-of-a-daubert-hearing-u-s-ninth-circuit-vacates-10-million-asbestos-verdict\/","title":{"rendered":"Citing the Lack of a &#8220;Daubert&#8221; Hearing, U.S. Ninth Circuit Vacates $10 Million Asbestos Verdict"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\">[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated a $10 million jury verdict and remanded\u00a0<em>Barabin v. AstenJohnson, Inc.<\/em>\u00a0to a Washington federal district court for a new trial after concluding that the district court should have held a Daubert hearing before permitting an expert witness to offer his &#8220;any exposure&#8221; theory.<\/p>\n<p>The case involved expert testimony by plaintiff&#8217;s expert Ken Cohen, and concerns a hotly disputed issue in asbestos litigation\u2014the &#8220;any exposure&#8221; theory of liability, through which plaintiffs attempt to hold manufacturers liable for increasingly trivial exposures to asbestos.\u00a0In\u00a0<em>Barabin<\/em>, there was evidence that Mr. Barabin (who had mesothelioma) had causative exposure to amphibole insulation products, but he and his wife sued, among other defendants, the manufacturer of chrysotile-containing dryer felts that were used at his workplace. The evidence at trial established that exposure to fibers from dryer felts was minimal; nevertheless, plaintiff was allowed to present testimony through Dr. Cohen that any occupational exposure to asbestos, no matter how trivial, was enough to be a substantial contributing factor to Mr. Barabin&#8217;s disease.<\/p>\n<p>The Ninth Circuit vacated the jury verdict after concluding that the district court should have held a Daubert hearing to assess the scientific methodologies, reasoning, or principles behind Dr. Cohen&#8217;s &#8220;any exposure&#8221; theory.\u00a0The case was remanded to the district court for that hearing and a new trial.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated a $10 million jury verdict and remanded\u00a0Barabin v. AstenJohnson, Inc.\u00a0to a Washington federal district court for a new trial after concluding that the district court should have held a Daubert hearing before permitting an expert witness to offer his &#8220;any&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[102,101],"tags":[198],"post_series":[],"class_list":["post-1471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-appellate","category-asbestos-litigation","tag-insights","authorormentioned-john-osburn","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1471"},{"taxonomy":"post_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studioactiv8.com\/bullivant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_series?post=1471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}