By: Derek Hawkins//December 19, 2017//
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: S.V. Gopalratinam, et al. v. Hewlett-Packard Company, et al.
Case No.: 17-1810
Officials: BAUER, FLAUM, and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.
Focus: Motion to Exclude Expert – Daubert
Plaintiffs’ son tragically perished in a fire at plaintiffs’ home in June 2010. Believing that the fire was caused by a defective lithium ion battery cell from their son’s laptop, plaintiffs filed a products liability suit against separate manufacturers of the laptop, battery pack, and individual battery cells. Plaintiffs supported their causation theory solely through testimony from two expert witnesses, whom defendants later moved to exclude under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993). The district court granted defendants’ motions to exclude, and therefore entered summary judgment in their favor. Plaintiffs now appeal the district court’s ruling. We affirm.
Affirmed