Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Epistemiology and Legal Process

Authors

Margaret G. Farrell, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

Abstract

Justice Blackmun's majority opinion in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. acknowledges that law and science have different goals, but it fails to recognize the implications of those differences for legal process. Recent increases in the scientifically-based claims brought in the federal courts, and in the size and complexity of the litigation in which such claims are made, have raised the stakes in the debate. At the same time, scientific concepts of relativity, uncertainty, and multiple causation are at odds with simple, legal notions about fact-finding and cause and effect. This disparity between legal and scientific understandings over the admission of scientific evidence in legal proceedings poses complicated questions for judges and juries about the law's use of scientific knowledge in allocating social responsibility in civil and criminal proceedings. Rather than answer these questions, Justice Blackmun strikes a problematic compromise between the two, instructing federal judges to use the scientific method for law's purposes, without acknowledging the difficulty of that task. This Article explores the inconsistent epistemological premises upon which the Justices proceeded in Daubert, and their significance for legal proceedings.

Keywords

Courts, Evidence, Fire Insurance, Insurance Law, Science and Technology Law, Testimony, Legal Practice and Procedure, Legal History, Philosophy, Sociology, Social Studies

Disciplines

Courts | Evidence | Insurance Law | Law | Legal History | Philosophy | Science and Technology Law | Sociology

Recommended Citation

Margaret G. Farrell, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Epistemiology and Legal Process, 15 Cardozo L. Rev. 2183 (1994).
Available at: https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/clr/vol15/iss6/16