In my ongoing chronicle of sports-related litigation, https://www.videntpartners.com/blog/sports-law, I have previously had occasion to cite the work of Michael McCann, Sports Illustrated’s legal analyst and the founding director of the University of New Hampshire Law School’s Sports and Entertainment Law Institute. Professor McCann has outdone himself in a just-posted article, “U.S. Women’s National Team Challenges Use of U.S.
A recent opinion of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Kopplin v. Wisconsin Central Limited, http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2019/D02-01/C:17-3602:J:Sykes:aut:T:fnOp:N:2286594:S:0, is an excellent reminder that a case can fail without a well-chosen and properly prepared expert witness.
Here’s a timely reminder that Federal Rule of Evidence 702 (the basis of the Supreme Court’s famous Daubert decision) imposes a four-part test. For expert opinion testimony to be admissible, the fact that the expert has “scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge [that] will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue” [Fed. R. Evid. 702(a)] is necessary, but not sufficient.
The U.S.
