Court Addresses Admissibility of Expert Testimony Under the Federal Employer's Liability Act

In the case of Lindsay v. Delaware and Hudson Railway Co., Inc., No. 2019-CV-3949 (C.P. Lacka. Co. March 3, 2025 Nealon, J.), the court addressed a pre-trial Motion In Limine filed by the Defendants seeking to preclude the opinions of a Plaintiff’s medical expert in a personal injury claim arising out of the Federal Employer’s Liability Act. The Defendants contended that the Plaintiff’s medical expert’s causation opinions were inadmissible since they were based upon methodologies that were not generally accepted in the relevant scientific community.

After reviewing the expert’s report and noting that the expert had a section of his report entitled “Methodology” in which the doctor described the methodologies he utilized in formulating his general causation and specific causation opinions, the court denied the Defendant’s Motion In Limine.

The court note that the materials submitted for the court’s review confirm that the Plaintiff’s medical expert based his causation opinions upon his knowledge, experience, and training in internal medicine, oncology, and hematology, the review of the Plaintiff’s medical records and deposition testimony, the Defendant’s discovery responses, other expert reports, along with the application of the generally accepted methodologies for general causation and specific causation.

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Court Addresses Statute of Limitations Under Federal Employers' Liability Act

In the case of Loomis v. Delaware and Hudson Railway Co., Inc., No. 17-CV-5421 (C.P. Lacka. Co. May 12, 2022 Nealon, J.), the court denied a Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment based, in part, on the three (3) year statute of limitations under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (“FELA”).

In this matter, the Plaintiff filed suit under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act alleging that her husband contracted cancer and later died from continuous exposure to toxic substances during his railroad employment and due to the railroad employer’s failure to provide a reasonably safe work environment.

According to the record before the court, the decedent was first diagnosed with cancer in 2007 and later died in 2014.

In response to the Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment on the statute of limitations issues, the court found that neither the decedent nor his widow was ever advised by any healthcare professional, railroad representative, or any other person that the cancer was possibly related to the decedent’s railroad work or his exposure to toxic substances. Rather, the evidence indicated that a potential causal connection between the decedent’s cancer and his job was first mentioned to the widow by a co-worker of the decedent in the same year that she commenced a lawsuit.

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Source of image:  Photo by Tom Barrett on www.unsplash.com.