The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that expert testimony concerning vinyl chloride did not show it had the capacity to cause the harm alleged.
In C.W. Ex rel. Wood v. Textron, Inc. (Seventh Circuit August 26, 2015 ___ F.3d ____ (2015) WL 502392698) plaintiffs claimed that their children”?s injuries were due to vinyl chloride which had seeped into the plaintiffs”? underground drinking water. They presented three expert witnesses who claimed there was a causal connection between seepage and the plaintiffs”? illness.
The parties agreed that the experts were well-qualified and the issue was the reliability of the methodology they employed in generating their expert opinions. The trial court granted motions in limine striking the experts opinions and then entered summary judgment.
The court of review agreed with the district court who had found that the methodologies were unreliable because that the experts improperly linked the plaintiffs illness on the bare fact that they were exposed to vinyl chloride at levels that exceeded applicable regulations. Also, that the experts relied on articles which concerned levels of vinyl chloride that were greater than the levels at issue in the instant case. Finally, no expert established, as an initial matter, why vinyl chloride should have been considered as a possible cause of the illnesses. The fact that there were no available studies that examined the impact of vinyl chloride on children did not require a different result.