《Christophersenv.AlliedSignalCorp..docVIP

Christophersen v. Allied-Signal Corp. (1991) 克里斯托弗森诉联合信号公司案 Before the passage of the Federal Rules of Evidence in 1975, the rule of Frye v. United States governed the admissibility of scientific evidence. This rule required that a scientific technique be “generally accepted within the relevant scientific community” before an expert could testify to an opinion based on that technique. Commentators have criticized the Frye rule for excluding reliable evidence from the jury. The Federal Rules of Evidence broadened the standards for admissibility of evidence generally, and Rule 702 commissions judges to admit expert testimony on scientific matters if it “will assist the trier of fact.” This rule effectively establishes a relevance standard that leaves questions of scientific validity to the jury. 联邦证据规则在1975年通过之前，弗瑞尔诉合众国一案中确定的证据规则一直是法庭审查专家证据的依据。该规则要求，在一个专家依据某个特定的技术能够提出一个观点证明之前，这个特定的技术在相关科学领域内应被普遍接受。评论家们一直在批评弗瑞尔规则，它使陪审团排除了可靠的证据。联邦证据规则总体上拓宽了证据采集的标准，第702条规定，如果专家就专业问题的证词有助于法官查清事实，则该证词法官应予采纳。该规定有效地建立了恰当的标准---陪审团可以确定专家证词的有效性。 These liberal standards of admissibility have opened the gates to dubious scientific claims and allowed paid expert witness to give the aura of scientific legitimacy to virtually any claim. In recent years, the pendulum has begun to swing back, and courts have called for restrictions on the admissibility of expert testimony. In a recent toxic tort case, Christophersen v. Allied-Signal Corp., the Fifth Circuit has signaled this change by giving renewed vitality to the Frye rule. The irony of Christophersen is that, although the rules of admissibility of expert scientific testimony need to be made more rigorous, toxic tort is one context in which the Frye rule is too strict. 这些宽松的采纳标准为那些可疑的专家证词打开了方便之门。事实上受雇专家可以为他的任何证词披上合法的外衣。近年来，舆论开始回头，法院要求对专家证词的采纳采取限制。在最近的一个中毒侵权案中，即克里斯托弗森诉联合信号公司案，第五巡回区上诉法院重新确立了弗瑞尔规则的重要性，就预示着对此要有所改变。具有讽刺意味的是，尽管人们呼吁对专家证词的采纳要采取更加严格的标准，但克里斯托弗森案所采纳的弗瑞尔规则却过于苛刻。 Albert Christophersen died in 1986 from a rare form of liver cancer. For fourteen y