Opinion

Elher v. Misra

  • 499 Mich. 11
  • 878 N.W.2d 790
Court
Michigan Supreme Court
Filed
Feb 8, 2016
Status
Published
Author
Bernstein
On the bench
Bernstein, Larsen, Markman, McCormack, Per Curiam, Viviano, Young, Zahra
Cited by
176 cases

holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion and explaining that, although “peer-reviewed, published literature is not always necessary or sufficient to meet the requirements of MRE 702, the lack of supporting literature, combined with the lack of any other form of support, rendered [the expert’s] opinion unreliable and inadmissible under MRE 702”

How later courts described this case

  • holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion and explaining that, although “peer-reviewed, published literature is not always necessary or sufficient to meet the requirements of MRE 702, the lack of supporting literature, combined with the lack of any other form of support, rendered [the expert’s] opinion unreliable and inadmissible under MRE 702”
  • holding that where the “breach of the standard of care is [not] so obvious to a layperson that no expert testimony is required, ... expert testimony [will be needed] to prove the applicable standard of care and a breach of that standard of care”
  • agreeing with the trial court that an expert’s opinion, which was disproven by literature, was not reliable because the expert provided no contrary literature and was unable to demonstrate that his opinion was widely accepted in his community
  • holding that the proponent of expert testimony must establish that his or her experts are qualified

Written by the judges who cited it.

The opinion

BERNSTEIN, J.

(dissenting). I would affirm for the reasons stated in the Court of Appeals majority opinion. I believe the Court of Appeals reached the right result for the right reasons.

LARSEN, J., took no part in the decision of this case.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

A word about cookies

We need a few to keep you signed in and the library working. The rest help us see which pages people use and where they get stuck. They stay off unless you say yes.