Schleich v. Penn Cent. Corp.

Citations

• 255 N.E.3d 216
• 2024 Ohio 5005

Syllabus

Toxic tort, Federal Employers' Liability Act, necessity of expert testimony, reliability of expert testimony, summary judgment. In a Federal Employers' Liability Act lawsuit, plaintiff alleged that while working for defendants, he was exposed to diesel exhaust fumes that was a cause of plaintiff's developing a type of leukemia. In order to support his claim, plaintiff was required to produce expert medical testimony on both general and specific causation. Plaintiff produced medical expert on the issue of causation who opined that benzene is contained in diesel exhaust and because benzene is a known cause of cancers to include leukemia, the exposure to diesel exhaust was a cause of plaintiff's condition. The trial court granted defendants' motions to exclude plaintiff's expert's testimony on the grounds that it was unreliable. The trial court determined that the expert's testimony as to general causation was unreliable because the expert's method for finding and analyzing the scientific literature was unreliable and the expert did not support his opinion with scientific literature or explain the contradictory scientific literature that diesel exposure did not support an effect as to cancers such as leukemia. The trial court's grant of the motion to exclude the expert testimony was not an abuse of discretion. After the expert testimony was excluded, plaintiff did not have evidence of general causation and summary judgment was properly granted in favor of defendants.