Rutledge v. Walgreen: The Second Circuit Clarifies The Line Between Gatekeeper And Decision-Maker

On July 13, in a precedential opinion, the United States 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 Federal Rule of Evidence 702, as amended in 2023, and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993).

In Rutledge v. Walgreen Co., arising from a multidistrict litigation concerning the alleged causal relationship between prenatal acetaminophen use and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and/or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the Second Circuit sought to limit overzealous gatekeeping, directing 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