New Jersey Supreme Court to Hear Arguments on Expert Admissibility Question in Multi-County Litigation In re: Accutane

On behalf of amici curiae HealthCare Institute of New Jersey, New Jersey Business & Industry Association, Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey, and the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, McCarter partners Edward J. Fanning, Jr. and David R. Kott successfully petitioned the New Jersey Supreme Court for leave to appear in support of Defendants-Petitioners Hoffman-La Roche, Inc. and Roche Laboratories, Inc. in connection with long-running multicounty litigation titled In re: Accutane. The central issue before the Court is the admissibility of expert testimony. The position we are taking is that the time has come for New Jersey to join the majority of other states and the federal court system and adopt the Daubert standard for admission of expert testimony. New Jersey’s rules for admissibility of expert testimony are weaker than those in the federal court system and other states. This creates a problem where cases that could not survive in the federal courts and in the other jurisdictions are filed here in New Jersey in hopes of getting a jury trial on expert testimony that just isn’t reliable. Mr. Fanning will argue that New Jersey state courts should adopt the Daubert standard widely accepted in other jurisdictions.