Comparison Of Daubert, And Kumho

Both Daubert, and Kumho, make it clear that the day of the expert, who merely opines, and does so on basis of vague notions of experience, is over. Experts are now held to a level of accountability that requires factual predicates, in historical fact, or in competent evidence, which allows a factfinder to independently verify the accuracy of the expert’s results. Absent such reliable verification, the expert’s opinion is not admissible. Choudek’s failure to test his hypotheses in a reliable manner or to validate his hypotheses by reference to generally accepted scientific principles as applied to the facts of this case renders his testimony on the cause and origin of the fire unreliable and therefore inadmissible under Daubert and Federal Rules of Evidence 702 and 104.
Id.; see also Pro Serv.
Auto., L.L.C. v. Lenan Corp., 469 F.3d 1210, 1215 (8th Cir. 2006) (expert opinion properly excluded because expert provided no testing or other engineering analysis to support his causation opinion); Peitzmeier v. Hennessy Indus., Inc., 97 F.3d 293, 298 (8th Cir. 1996) (expert opinion properly excluded because expert did not conduct any experiments or testing); Solheim Farms, Inc., 503 F. Supp. 2d at 1150–51 (expert testimony excluded because expert did not perform any testing or experiments to verify his
theory).