Sargon, Take Me Away!

Apple Inc. v. Superior Court, No. D072287 (D4d1 Jan. 29, 2018)

Generally speaking, plaintiff who moves to certify a class needs to support the motion with admissible evidence to show numerosity, commonality, etc. Sometimes that evidence takes the form of expert opinion. And when it does, the opinion needs to hold up the admissibility standard for expert testimony. Since 2002, that means the standard from Sargon Enterprises, Inc. v. University of Southern California, 55 Cal.4th 747 (2002), in which the California Supreme Court led us out of the wilderness of the Frye rule and finally held that trial courts need to screen out expert testimony of dubious methodological reliability. That seems pretty obvious, and that’s the way it’s done in federal court, where the analogous Daubert standard has been applied at the class cert stage forever. Which is probably why the Court of Appeal stepped in to grant a writ here.

Writ granted.

So Much for Gatekeeping . . .

Green v. City of Riverside, No. D067424 (D4d1 Jul. 29, 2015)

This case arises from the kind of unfortunate interaction between the cops and the mentally ill that seems to happen every day nowadays. An obviously unstable guy is found dancing in the sprinklers at a church in Hemet, wearing only his underwear and saying crazy stuff. Someone calls 911. Cops show. Things escalate. There’s a confrontation. Tasing ensues. Three times. An asphyxiation-friendly move gets used to put the cuffs on. The guy winds up brain dead. And then fully dead. The coroner pins it on a “bad heart.” And a trial before a Riverside jury results in a defense verdict.