Goodell DeVries lawyers Shannon Madden, Nikki Nesbitt, Derek Stikeleather, and Carrie Williams persuaded the Appellate Court of Maryland to affirm a lower court’s ruling for a Baltimore hospital excluding the cerebral-palsy causation testimony of two expert witnesses.
In early 2023, Shannon Madden won a Daubert/Rule 5-702 motion ruling excluding the plaintiff’s causation testimony and ending the case on summary judgment. For the two-day evidentiary Daubert hearing, Shannon cross-examined two professional expert witnesses who opined that cerebral palsy was caused in the last two hours of plaintiff’s preterm delivery at 30 weeks’ gestation and would have been avoided entirely with earlier delivery. Shannon presented a leading maternal-fetal-medicine expert who explained why the plaintiff’s experts were espousing junk science for litigation purposes. The Circuit Court for Baltimore City granted the hospital's Rule 5-702 motion, excluding the plaintiff's two causation experts’ opinions and granting the hospital summary judgment.
Plaintiffs and the Plaintiffs’ Bar reacted swiftly. Plaintiffs unsuccessfully moved for reconsideration and sought recusal of the trial judge, calling the ruling a "seismic shift" in Maryland birth-injury litigation. On appeal, the Maryland Association for Justice made similar arguments in an amicus brief for Plaintiffs. Plaintiffs also unsuccessfully sought an immediate bypass petition to the Supreme Court of Maryland. Although plaintiffs in cerebral-palsy cases often skirt Rule 5-702 scrutiny with ipse dixit testimony of hired-gun experts, the trial judge was not fooled and saw the profound analytical gaps in the opinions in this case.
A three-judge panel heard oral argument by Derek Stikeleather in February 2024. And on September 24, 2024, the Appellate Court of Maryland unanimously affirmed the lower court’s decision. Applying the controlling abuse-of-discretion standard, the Appellate Court recognized that the opinion would withstand even de novo review because of the profound analytical gaps. The Court also found the recusal motion meritless.
