Evolving Standards for Daubert Challenges in Environmental Litigation
Pesticides, Herbicides, Airborne Toxins, Climate Change, and Fracking
Course Details
- smart_display Format
On-Demand
- signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level
- work Practice Area
Environmental
- event Date
Thursday, January 10, 2019
- schedule Time
1:00 PM E.T.
- timer Program Length
90 minutes
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This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.
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This CLE course will examine the evolving standards for Daubert challenges in toxic tort and environmental litigation. The panel will summarize developments related to expert-witness testimony in the most highly-contentious environmental disputes, and provide insight into successful strategies—based on recent state and federal rulings—for presenting or defending a Daubert challenge.
In environmental litigation, counsel must routinely rely on expert witnesses to opine and testify on key issues related to causation, liability, and damages. But Daubert and the law surrounding challenges to expert opinions and testimony continues to evolve, particularly in highly-contentious disputes involving pesticides, herbicides, airborne toxins, climate change, and fracking litigation.
From the admission of the plaintiff’s expert testimony in the recent California glyphosate suit against Monsanto, to ongoing fracking and climate change cases, the scope of allowable expert witness testimony in highly-technical cases continues to be defined.
Counsel in environmental law disputes must be prepared to challenge and defend expert witness testimony in light of these new cases, and the underlying strategies for expert witness admissibility provide valuable guidance for litigators.
Listen as our panel of experienced environmental litigators discusses the applicability of the Daubert standard in presenting expert testimony in environmental and toxic tort suits. The panel will analyze what is required to successfully present or defend a Daubert challenge in these contexts, and provide detailed recommendations for deploying the full arsenal of tools that litigators have at their disposal.
- Evolving Standards for Daubert Challenges
- Herbicides and pesticides
- Airborne toxins
- Climate change
- Fracking
- Dispositive Motions in the Daubert hearing
- Daubert’s application to toxic tort and environmental litigation
- Is the expert qualified?
- Is the testimony reliable and relevant?
- Strategies for presenting and defending Daubert challenges
The panel will review these and other relevant questions:
- How can counsel effectively challenge the most novel theories of environmental expert witnesses?
- What lessons can be learned from recent cases related to herbicides, pesticides, airborne toxins, climate change, and fracking?
- How do courts construe a proffered expert’s reliability?
- What role do regulatory compliance issues play in these types of litigation?
