Litigation
Cal. Litig. 2014, Volume 27, Number 2
Content
- McDermott on Demand: Horsing Around
- Mediation Research: What Really Works?
- Litigation Section Executive Committee Past Chairs
- Past Editors-in-Chief
- From the Section Chair
- Table of Contents
- Riverisland: Inordinate Burdens or Leveling the Playing Field
- Mum's the Word: Why Saying Too Much May Invalidate a Contract
- The Inelegant Art of Scorched Earth Discovery
- New Lawyer Column: Motion Buffet
- Adr Update - the Pre-Mediation Conference: An Underused Step Toward Resolution
- Fighting Procrastination in Legal Practice: Defining and Finding Your Role in the Cycle
- Masthead
- California Attorney Fee Orders: When to Appeal, Defend or Settle
- Sargon Enterprises v. Usc-a Different Perspective
- Editor's Foreword This Award-Winning Publication (?)
Sargon Enterprises v. USC-A Different Perspective
By Edward J. Imwinkelried and David L. Faigman
Last year this journal published an article by Robert Knaier discussing the California Supreme Court case of Sargon Enterprises, Inc. v. USC, titled A Gatekeeper Embraced: Expert Opinion Testimony and the Long Road from Daubert to Sargon, 26:3 Cal. Litigation 37. This article analyzes Sargon from a slightly different perspective â that of the authors of the law review article that Sargon relied on.
In 1923, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals decided Frye v. United States (D.C. Cir. 1923) 293 Fed. 1013. In Frye, the court announced that to serve as a basis for expert testimony, a scientific theory must be generally accepted in the relevant expert circles. By the early 1970s, Frye had become the overwhelming majority view in the United States. In 1976, the California Supreme Court adopted that test in People v. Kelly (1976) 17 Cal.3d 24. Although the United States Supreme Court abandoned the Frye test in 1993 ( Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (1993) 509 U.S. 579), the California Supreme Court quickly made it clear that it did not intend to shift to Daubert’s empirical validation/reliability standard. (People v. Leahy (1994) 8 Cal.4th 587.)
[Page 14]