expert in the field

Appellant, defendant below, was convicted of the crime of murder in the second degree, and from the judgment prosecutes this appeal. The case was submitted on November 7, 1923, and decided on December 3, 1923, by the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia with Associate Justice Van Orsdel writing the opinion. In the course of the trial counsel for defendant offered an expert witness to testify to the result of a deception test made upon defendant. The test is described as the systolic blood pressure deception test, and it is asserted that blood pressure is influenced by changes in the emotions of the witness, the systolic blood pressure rises being brought about by nervous impulses sent to the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. Scientific experiments, it is claimed, have demonstrated that fear, rage, and pain produce a rise of systolic blood pressure, and that conscious deception or falsehood, concealment of facts, or guilt of crime, when accompanied by fear of detection while the person is under examination, raises the systolic blood pressure in a curve which corresponds to the struggle going on in the subject's mind between fear and attempted control of that fear as the examination touches the vital points in respect of which he is attempting to deceive the examiner. Prior to the trial defendant was subjected to this deception test, and counsel offered the scientist who conducted the test as an expert to testify to the results obtained. The offer was objected to by counsel for the government, and the court sustained the objection. Counsel for defendant then offered to have the proffered witness conduct a test in the presence of the jury, and this also was denied.

In 1973, Robert Joiner began work as an electrician in the Water & Light Department of Thomasville, Georgia. This job required him to work with and around the City's electrical transformers, which used a mineral-oil-based dielectric fluid as a coolant. Joiner often had to stick his hands and arms into the fluid to make repairs. The fluid would sometimes splash onto him, occasionally getting into his eyes and mouth. In 1983 the City discovered that the fluid in some of the transformers was contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Joiner was diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer in 1991. He sued petitioners in Georgia state court the following year. Petitioner Monsanto manufactured PCBs from 1935 to 1977; petitioners General Electric and Westinghouse Electric manufactured transformers and dielectric fluid. In his complaint Joiner linked his development of cancer to his exposure to PCBs and their derivatives, polychlorinated dibenzofurans (furans) and polychlorinated dibenzodioxins (dioxins). Joiner had been a smoker for approximately eight years, his parents had both been smokers, and there was a history of lung cancer in his family. Petitioners removed the case to federal court. Once in federal court, petitioners moved for summary judgment. They contended that there was no evidence that Joiner suffered significant exposure to PCBs, furans, or dioxins, and that there was no admissible scientific evidence that PCBs promoted Joiner's cancer. Joiner responded that there were numerous disputed factual issues that required resolution by a jury. He relied largely on the testimony of expert witnesses. In depositions, his experts had testified that PCBs alone can promote cancer and that furans and dioxins can also promote cancer. They opined that since Joiner had been exposed to PCBs, furans, and dioxins, such exposure was likely responsible for Joiner's cancer. The experts included Dr. Arnold Schecter, who testified that it was more likely than not that Mr. Joiner's lung cancer was causally linked to cigarette smoking and PCB exposure, and Dr. Daniel Teitelbaum, who testified that Joiner's lung cancer was caused by or contributed to in a significant degree by the materials with which he worked. The District Court ruled that there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Joiner had been exposed to PCBs. But it nevertheless granted summary judgment for petitioners because there was no genuine issue as to whether Joiner had been exposed to furans and dioxins. The testimony of Joiner's experts had failed to show that there was a link between exposure to PCBs and small-cell lung cancer. The court believed that the testimony of respondent's experts to the contrary did not rise above subjective belief or unsupported speculation. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed. It held that because the Federal Rules of Evidence governing expert testimony display a preference for admissibility, it applied a particularly stringent standard of review to the trial judge's exclusion of expert testimony. The Supreme Court granted petitioners' petition for a writ of certiorari in 1997.