In Johnson v. Ridge Tool Manufacturing Company, Inc., No. 25-2604 (7th Cir. August 7, 2026), the plaintiff filed a personal injury lawsuit after he was severely injured while using a drain-cleaning machine manufactured by the defendant. The district court excluded the plaintiff’s expert witness and granted summary judgment to the defendant and plaintiff appealed.
The District Court excluded both expert witnesses under Federal Rule of Evidence 702. In its view, expert Jones’s evaluation was unreliable. His opinion—that there was a safer alternative design that Ridge Tool should have used—was unsupported because, as the court recognized, he failed to test his alternative design to ensure it was indeed safer. Nor did Jones address aspects of the alternative design: its compatibility with the machine, the added manufacturing costs, or its risks. “With so many unanswered questions here,” the court reasoned “it is guesswork as to whether a fixed guard would make a drain cleaning machine safer.” The second expert, Rando, was excluded for different reasons. She focused largely on the user manual and its perceived shortcomings, which Johnson did not read. Nor did she offer examples of what a more effective, alternative warning label would be.
The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that plaintiff’s experts were appropriately excluded for using unreliable methods and reaching unsupported conclusions and without that evidence, plaintiff could not prevail. (EASTERBROOK and TAIBLESON, concurring)