# Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Havner

> Texas Supreme Court · November 13, 1997 · 40 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 846

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9646215

## Case

- **Full name:** MERRELL DOW PHARMACEUTICALS, INC., Petitioner, v. Ernest HAVNER and Marilyn Havner on Behalf of Their Minor Child Kelly HAVNER, Respondents
- **Court:** Texas Supreme Court
- **Decided:** November 13, 1997
- **Citations:** 40 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 846; 953 S.W.2d 706; 1997 Tex. LEXIS 117; 1997 WL 378060
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Spector
- **Judges:** Spector, Owen, Phillips, Gonzalez, Hecht, Cornyn, Enoch, Abbott, Baker
- **Cited by:** 3,417 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/9646215

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- concluding in a products liability case involving administration of a drug alleged to cause birth defects that "the requirement of a more than 50% probability means that epidemiological evidence must show [at least] that the risk of an injury or condition in the exposed popula…
- holding that legal sufficiency challenge “will be sustained when (a) there is a complete absence of evidence of a vital fact, (b) the court is barred by rules of law or of evidence from giving weight to the only evidence offered to prove a vital fact, (c) the evidence offered …
- concluding that properly designed and executed epidemiological studies may be part of the evidence supporting causation in a toxic tort case, and finding a rational basis for relating the requirement that there be more than a "doubling of the risk" to the "more likely than not…
- holding “[m]ore than a scintilla of evidence exists when the evidence supporting the finding, as a whole, rises to a level that would enable reasonable and fair-minded people to differ in their conclusions” (internal quotations omitted)
- holding “[m]ore than a scintilla of evidence exists when the evidence supporting the finding, *353 as a whole, rises to a level that would enable reasonable and fair-minded people to differ in their conclusions”

## Opinion text

SPECTOR, Justice,
concurring.
The Court today fails to heed its own warning that “the examination of a scientific study by a cadre of lawyers is not the same as its examination by others trained in the field of science or medicine.” 953 S.W.2d at 727 (internal citations omitted). I agree that the Havners’ expert witness testimony is not legally sufficient evidence of causation. However, as a judge, and not a scientist, I am uncomfortable with the majority’s ambitious scientific analysis and its unnecessarily expansive application of the Daubert standard. The majority’s opinion, replete with dicta, gives courts no practical guidance outside the context of Bendectin litigation. Accordingly, I concur only in the judgment of the Court.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9646215. Public record. Not legal advice.