Should Federal Evidence Rules Trump State Tort Policy? The Federalism Values Daubert Ignored

Authors

Michael H. Gottesman, Georgetown University Law Center

Abstract

I want to explore issues that the Supreme Court should have addressed in Daubert but did not. The Court decided that Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence ("FRE") assigns a "gatekeeping" function to federal trial judges, who are to exclude expert scientific opinions that do not meet a standard of "reliability" vaguely sketched out in the Court's opinion.

The Daubert case involved exclusively state substantive law issues and was in federal court only because the defendant removed it from state court on the basis of diversity of citizenship. The Court held the gatekeeping function applicable in diversity actions, without addressing whether its holding would subvert substantive state tort policies. This Article suggests that, in the application of the FRE to diversity actions, substantive state interests deserve greater consideration.

Keywords

Evidence, Federalism, Political Theories and Ideologies, Judges, Testimony, Legal Practice and Procedure, Environmental Law

Disciplines

Environmental Law | Evidence | Judges | Law | Political Theory

Recommended Citation

Michael H. Gottesman, Should Federal Evidence Rules Trump State Tort Policy? The Federalism Values Daubert Ignored, 15 Cardozo L. Rev. 1837 (1994).
Available at: https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/clr/vol15/iss6/5