Danielle Smith v. Pepsi Americas

MEMORANDUM

Plaintiffs Danielle Smith and Jo Ann Wakeland allege that Defendants Pepsi Americas, Whitman Corporation, Pneumo Abex Corporation, and unnamed individuals caused personal injuries to Plaintiffs by releasing trichloro ethylene (“TCE”) and hexavalent chromium from a chrome-plating facility in Willits, California. The district court granted summary judgment to Defendants after excluding, under Federal Rule of Evidence 702, Plaintiffs’ expert testimony on exposure and causation as scientifically unreliable. See Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 589 , 118 S.Ct. 2786 , 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993). Reviewing the district court’s evi-dentiary rulings for abuse of discretion, Primiano v. Cook, 598 F.3d 558, 563 (9th Cir.2010), and its summary judgment rulings de novo, Travelers Cas. & Sur. Co. of Am. v. Brenneke, 551 F.3d 1132, 1137 (9th Cir.2009), we affirm in part and reverse in part and remand.

1. The district court abused its discretion in excluding the expert testimony of Dr. O’Connor, Dr. Sawyer, and Dr. Byers.

The O’Connor rebuttal report provided a reasoned ground for its assumption that TCE emissions between 1971 and 1975 would be similar to reported…