In a sudden reversal and after more than more than five years of uncertainty, on May 23, 2019, the Supreme Court of Florida ruled that Daubert – not Frye – now governs the admissibility of expert testimony in Florida. See In re Amendments to the Florida Evidence Code, No. SC19-107, May 23, 2019.
Continue Reading The Daubert Standard Once Again Controls in Florida State Court
After more than five years of uncertainty, the Florida Supreme Court’s opinion in DeLisle v. Crane finally settled the debate over the standard for determining the admissibility of expert witness testimony in Florida state courts. Case No. SC16-2182 (Fla. Oct. 15, 2018). In a narrow 4-3 decision, the court rejected Daubert and adopted Frye. The outcome should come as no surprise. In 2017, in a rarely exercised move, the Florida Supreme Court declined to adopt the legislature’s 2013 revisions to the Florida Evidence Code codifying Daubert.
The discovery phase in your products liability lawsuit has been completed and it’s time to decide the next course of action before proceeding to trial. One possibility, of course, is to move for summary judgment to knock out the entire case pending against your client. However, you have concluded that, despite the strengths of your case, there are enough “issues of fact” to make the exercise probably useless.
Have you considered instead a Motion for Partial Summary Judgment? Perhaps you should.
The first step is to determine whether your jurisdiction permits motions for partial summary judgment to be filed. Rule 56 of The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure specifically calls for “Partial” summary judgments in its very title. In my home state, New York’s CPLR 3212(e) reads, “In any other action summary judgment may be granted as to one or more causes of action, or part thereof, in favor of any one or more parties, to the extent warranted, on such terms as may be just.” Thus, there is little doubt that under the right reading of the law and facts, a partial summary judgment might be allowed.
Continue Reading The Motion for Partial Summary Judgment: The Litigator’s Often Forgotten Tool