Walter Mixon Allen, Jr., Mattie Gayle Allen, Barry Lane Allen v. Pennsylvania Engineering Corp., American Sterilizer Company

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that a trial court specifically must determine that the reasoning and methodology underlying the testimony are scientifically valid
• explaining that agencies employ a “weight of evidence” standard, whereas plaintiffs must prove causation by a preponderance
• explaining that regulatory agencies trying to reduce public exposure to harmful substances require a lower “threshold of proof ... than that appropriate in tort law” which requires “particularized inquiries into cause and effect”
• rejecting as unreliable studies that were not statistically significant and were merely “suggestive” of a link
• affirming rejection of a study showing that exposure to carcinogen caused a different type of cancer than the one suffered by plaintiff
• finding expert’s reliance on animal studies in forming causation opinion unreliable when chemical exposure did not consistently result in brain tumors across species

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).