Experts’ testimony to remain limited in chicken litter case
Posted on Friday, August 4, 2006
Washington County Circuit Judge Kim Smith on Thursday reiterated a ruling limiting expert witness testimony in the Sept. 5 trial for a lawsuit that claims a substance in chicken litter caused cancer in the Prairie Grove area.
Plaintiffs in the suits allege the substance Roxarsone distributed by Alpharma Inc. and Alpharma Animal Health Inc. has caused high arsenic levels spread after litter degrades, resulting in cancer.
Defendants’ attorneys argued Thursday that any expert testimony related to calculations on exposure to arsenic should not be allowed. At issue Thursday were numbers that William Sawyer, a New York toxicologist, compiled based on dust samples.
Much of the expert testimony that has been excluded relies on work from Rod O’Connor, retired environmental studies professor from Baylor University, who has offered opinions on arsenic levels in dust and air to which plaintiffs were allegedly exposed.
Smith found that O’Connor’s methodology does not meet trial admissibility standards, and, on June 19, he granted in part the defendants’ motion to exclude O’Connor’s testimony. That ruling does allow him to testify about dust samples taken in homes.
Smith also ruled Thursday that no other plaintiffs’ expert may testify about O’Connor’s calculations. He ruled that any plaintiffs’ experts will not be allowed to testify to any opinions based on these calculations, or any ingestion dose calculations by Sawyer.
The case is now down to two defendants, Alpharma Inc. and Alpharma Animal Health Inc., because Smith granted defendants’ motions for summary judgment Wednesday, eliminating six poultry companies from the Sept. 5 trial and other trials in the same suit. A summary judgment is made when a judge decides the evidence is one-sided enough that there is no need for a trial.
The reason for the summary judgment ruling reportedly was because it was determined that the plaintiffs cannot prove that the poultry companies were the substantial contributing factors causing the plaintiffs’ diseases.
One of the bases of the summary judgment motion was that Arkansas does not recognize market share liability, which allocates liability based on companies’ market shares. This means that the plaintiffs would have to prove a link between litter spread in the area and a specific company.
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