Thursday, September 21, 2006

Oklahoma High Court Upholds Exclusion of Human Resources Testimony

The Supreme Court of Oklahoma (a Daubert state) has upheld a lower court's exclusion of a human resources expert on reliability grounds. The claim in the case arose from an attorney's failure to file an action seeking relief for his client from alleged workplace harassment. The expert proposed to opine that the fact or threat of a lawsuit prompts a standard response by human resources departments: segregating or insulating the employee from the source of the harrassment, followed by an internal investigation. His opinion was excluded for want of a reliable methodological or experience-based foundation.

The opinion does not appear to be available yet online. See Worsham v. Nix, 2006 OK 67 (Sept. 19, 2006).

posted by pn at 2:08 PM  

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Fed. R. Evid. 702: If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise, if (1) the testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data, (2) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods, and (3) the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case.