# Madeline Louise Hockett and Lowry Hockett v. United States

> Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit · April 23, 1984 · 730 F.2d 709

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9471972

## Case

- **Full name:** Madeline Louise HOCKETT and Lowry Hockett, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant-Appellant
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
- **Decided:** April 23, 1984
- **Citations:** 730 F.2d 709; 1984 U.S. App. LEXIS 23294
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Tjoflat
- **Judges:** Tjoflat, Godbold, Tjo-Flat, Henderson
- **Cited by:** 5 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9471972

## Opinion text

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge,
concurring specially:
The government, in its brief and in oral argument to this court, strongly criticizes the result reached by the district court in this case. It focuses its attack on the court’s reliance on Dr. Eylar’s testimony. I feel obliged, under the circumstances, to add a few words to what Chief Judge God-bold has said for the court.
Counsel for the government did not contemporaneously object to Dr. Eylar’s qualifications when he was tendered as an expert; nor did counsel object to his testimony describing the experiments he conducted or the opinion he based on those experiments. See Fed.Rules Evid. 702 and 703. Such objections would not have been frivolous. Dr. Eylar’s testimony has not been well received in other district courts. See Carter v. United States, No. G79-369, CA Slip op. (W.D.Mich. Jan. 15, 1984) (court “not persuaded” by Eylar and others); Iglarsh v. United States, No. 79C 2148, Slip op. (N.D.Ill. Jan. 24, 1984) (same); Pancho v. United States, No. C-79-0429, Slip op. (N.D.Cal.1983) (Eylar theory “speculative”); Kirby v. United States, No. 79-1805, Slip op. (D.D.C. July 16, 1982) (“other scientists have not duplicated the testing ... his latest theories have not been published____ Dr. Eylar’s testimony ... has not been accepted by the scientific community”); Anger v. United States, No. 80-F-105, Slip op. (D.Colo. July 31, 1981) (Eylar’s theories novel, unsupported, and not sufficiently similar to GBS). As the Middle District of Florida held in Mason v. United States, No. 79-614-Civ-Orl-17, Slip op. (M.D.Fla. Jan. 24, 1984):
Were it not for Dr. Eylar’s own statements concerning the developing nature of his theories and the obvious unreliability of his testing of the relevant vaccine lot, perhaps his theories would deserve more serious thought and discussion.
Moreover, even accepting all of Dr. Eylar’s objective tests and test results as valid, the leap in logic from his findings to his conclusion concerning the causation of GBS in humans remains monumental.
By failing to make timely objection to Dr. Eylar’s qualifications and testimony, and the experiments on which his opinions were founded, the government’s counsel deprived the plaintiff, and the court, from further inquiry which, for all we know, may have cast Eylar in a more credible light. Certainly, justice does not require that we now give the government, having failed in its trial strategy, a second chance to prevail.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9471972. Public record. Not legal advice.