2nd Circ. Tylenol MDL Ruling Clarifies Court Gatekeeper Role

On July 13, in a precedential opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit weighed in on the ongoing debate over how closely a district court may or should scrutinize a qualified expert's opinions under Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence as amended in 2023, and the U.S. Supreme Court's 1993 decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.

In Rutledge v. Walgreen Co., arising from a multidistrict litigation concerning the alleged causal relationship between prenatal acetaminophen use and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and/or autism spectrum disorder, the Second Circuit sought to limit overzealous gatekeeping. It directed courts to "strike a middle ground" between "the principle that a district court must take a hard look at the experts' applications of accepted methods" and the principle that a "court cannot decide a Daubert motion based on its own judgment of an expert's persuasiveness."¹