Bitler v. A.O. Smith Corp.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 federal appellate · 18 district · 2 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “ensure that any and all scientific testimony or evidence is not only relevant, but reliable.”

   5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Begay · Walker v. Spina

2. “[W]hen the conclusion simply does not follow from the data, a district court is free to determine that an impermissible analytical gap exists between premises and conclusion.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Norris v. Baxter Healthcare Corp. · Champagne Metals v. Ken-Mac Metals, Inc.

3. “We turn to the issue whether the Bit-lers’ experts, particularly Sommer, were required to test their theory. No doubt, Daubert noted that a key factor in valid scientific methodology is the practice of testing hypotheses to determine whether they can be falsified. Daubert, 509 U.S. at 593 , 113 S.Ct. 2786 (citing Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (5th ed.1989), who emphasized the importance of testing scientific theories to determine whether they can withstand critical scrutiny). One object of Popper’s method of falsification as a way of testing scientific theory is to acknowledge that any scientific theory is subject to future refutation through further observation and testing. Such emphasis, however, is aimed at theories purporting to explain the causal relations among regularly occurring natural phenomena. (Ptolemy’s theory of the movement of celestial bodies which hypothesized that the Earth was the center of the solar system, later falsified by Copernicus, is a prominent example of such a scientific theory subject to falsification by further inquiry.) No such theory is in question here. The Bitlers need only establish by a preponderance of the evidence that copper sulfide particles caused a one-time occurrence— the gas explosion in their basement. See, e.g., Kaiser Found. Health Plan v. Sharp, 741 P.2d 714, 719 (Colo.1987). Their experts do not present any controversial or novel explanations concerning regularly occurring natura”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Hoy v. DRM, INC.