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Daubert V. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Summary

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The case Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals is about two children that were born with birth defects. They and their parents sued Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals because they are the manufacturer of the drug Bendectin which they believed is the cause of their defects. When the courts asked for evidence that the drug could indeed cause such birth defects all they could come up with was that in some animal testing there were defects. The courts did not consider this as admissible. For an expert testimony to be admissible, the theory would have to be accepted in the scientific field, the theory would had to been tested and the results would have to be documented. The only thing that they had going for them was that the relationship between the drug and the birth defect. They could not prove that the drug cause the defect cause there was no other known cases and that there were no circumstantial evidence provided by their experts. The Daubert Standard imposed new obligations on the federal judge with regard to expert testimony. It said that the judge is the one who must screen all expert testimony for relevancy and reliability on the …show more content…
Commissioner of Internal Revenue. This case was about the estimation of the fair market value of property for a charitable contribution deduction. Boltar claimed charitable contributions in excess of what was actually the contribution. The court concluded that Boltar’s experts failed to apply realistic or objective assumptions. Boltar’s experts did not determine the highest and best use of the property after the easement was granted by considering the potential for a single family residential development. The experts were presented with several factual errors underlying their analysis of the subject property, but they did not prepare alternate scenarios to reflect the actual facts of the property.

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