Epidemiological-Study Reanalyses and Daubert: A Modest Proposal to Level the Playing Field in Toxic Tort Litigation

Chemicals and their attendant risks are ubiquitous in modern life.The certainty with which exposure to a chemical can be linked to a suspected harm often determines whether liability against a manufacturer (and therefore recourse for a victim) is warranted.Problematically, for many chemicals that are suspected toxins, certainty is a nuanced and difficult construct for science and law.The resulting knowledge gap enhances the possibility of legal failure-legitimate victims suffering real harms will go uncompensated, and phantom risks will subject faultless corporations to potentially ruinous liability.Many courts consider epidemiological studies to be the "gold standard" for linking exposure to allegedly toxic substances with harm, but these studies are not always available or favorable to one party.Expert witnesses may therefore attempt to reanalyze existing epidemiological studies.Trial courts, exercising their Daubert-mandated gatekeeping role, generally exclude these reanalyses.However, this Note argues that the premises for this restrictive view of epidemiological-study reanalyses are problematic, and, therefore, the strong judicial presumption of exclusion is ripe for review.For example, in