Insights & Events

Hollingsworth LLP and Atlantic Legal Foundation (ALF) filed an amicus curiae brief in support of Exxon Mobil Corporation (“ExxonMobil”) to overturn a grossly excessive verdict resulting largely from multiple errors by the Court of Common Pleas (“trial court”) in assessing the admissibility of plaintiffs’ expert evidence. Specifically, the trial court did not fulfill its responsibility under Pennsylvania Rule 702 to ensure that the “jury receives scientific opinion that is the result of sound research,” Walsh, 234 A.3d at 459, and results from a generally accepted methodology applied in the conventional manner. Id. at 456; Betz v. Pneumo Abex, LLC, 44 A.3d 27, 53 (Pa. 2012).

In Gill v. Exxon Mobil Corp., et al., the lead plaintiff alleged that his exposure to multiple benzene-containing products over several decades, including a relatively brief exposure to gasoline while working at a Mobil service station from 1975-1979, caused him to develop acute myeloid leukemia (“AML”). Plaintiff initially asserted causes of action related to benzene-containing products against numerous defendants, but the case went to the jury on negligence, strict liability design defect, and failure to warn claims only against ExxonMobil. The jury found in favor of plaintiff and his spouse (who asserted a derivative claim) and returned a $725,500,000 compensatory damages verdict.

The trial court abused its discretion when it failed to properly apply Pennsylvania Rule of Evidence 702, as well as the standards for the admissibility of expert testimony set forth in Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C. 1923), which has been adopted in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania’s Frye standard requires that the trial court determine whether the expert’s specified methodology is, in fact, generally accepted and whether the expert applied that methodology in a conventional fashion.

As noted in the amicus brief, proper implementation of this standard is not optional and the failure to do so is reversible error. Litigation involving complex issues, such as the scientific and medical causation issues in this case, should not be based on bait and switch tactics. Looking not just at what methodology the expert says he used, but also whether he applied that methodology in a conventional fashion, is a crucial function of the trial court. Jurors will not have background knowledge of the legal, scientific, or technical issues to make these assessments for themselves. If the trial court does not ensure the experts’ opinions result from the proper application of a generally accepted methodology, the integrity of the trial falls apart, grossly excessive jury verdicts are more likely, and justice is not served. The $725.5 million-dollar verdict returned here is an egregious example of such a failure.

Further, a trial court must consider all the evidence when assessing admissibility of expert testimony. This duty is not trivial or optional. In its 362-page opinion denying ExxonMobil’s post-trial motions, the trial court included 269 pages of plaintiffs’ experts’ trial testimony verbatim. In contrast, the trial court included no references to the defense experts’ opinions and no excerpts from their testimony. The trial court chose to ignore the defense experts’ testimony even though that testimony had, not surprisingly, identified meaningful gaps and omissions in plaintiffs’ experts’ methodology and called into doubt whether plaintiffs’ experts used a generally accepted scientific methodology and applied that methodology in a conventional fashion.