---
title: "Daubert standard"
chunk: 1/4
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daubert_standard"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:27:18.264783+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

In United States federal law, the Daubert standard ( DAW-bərt) is a rule of evidence regarding the admissibility of expert witness testimony. A party may raise a Daubert motion, a special motion in limine raised before or during trial, to exclude the presentation of unqualified evidence to the jury. The Daubert trilogy are the three United States Supreme Court cases that articulated the Daubert standard:

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (1993), which held that Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence did not incorporate the Frye standard as a basis for assessing the admissibility of scientific expert testimony, but that the rule incorporated a flexible reliability standard instead;
General Electric Co. v. Joiner (1997), which held that a district court judge may exclude expert testimony when there are gaps between the evidence relied on by an expert and that person's conclusion, and that an abuse-of-discretion standard of review is the proper standard for appellate courts to use in reviewing a trial court's decision of whether it should admit expert testimony;
Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael (1999), which held that the judge's gatekeeping function identified in Daubert applies to all expert testimony, including that which is non-scientific.
Important appellate-level opinions that clarify the standard include Judge Alex Kozinski's opinion in Daubert on remand, and Judge Edward Becker's opinion.

== Definition ==
In Daubert, seven members of the court agreed on the following guidelines for admitting scientific expert testimony:

Judge is gatekeeper: Under Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, the task of "gatekeeping", or assuring that scientific expert testimony truly proceeds from "scientific knowledge", rests on the trial judge.
Relevance and reliability:  This requires the trial judge to ensure that the expert's testimony is "relevant to the task at hand" and that it rests "on a reliable foundation". Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 584-587. Concerns about expert testimony cannot be simply referred to the jury as a question of weight. Furthermore, the admissibility of expert testimony is governed by Rule 104(a), not Rule 104(b); thus, the judge must find it more likely than not that the expert's methods are reliable and reliably applied to the facts at hand.
Scientific knowledge = scientific method/methodology:  A conclusion will qualify as scientific knowledge if the proponent can demonstrate that it is the product of sound "scientific methodology" derived from the scientific method.
Illustrative factors:  The court defined "scientific methodology" as the process of formulating hypotheses and then conducting experiments to prove or falsify the hypothesis, and provided a set of illustrative factors (i.e., not a "test") in determining whether these criteria are met:
Whether the theory or technique employed by the expert is generally accepted in the scientific community;
Whether it has been subjected to peer review and publication;
Whether it can be and has been tested;
Whether it has a known error rate; and
Whether the research was conducted independent of the particular litigation or dependent on an intention to provide the proposed testimony.
In 2000, the Federal Rules of Evidence, Rule 702 was amended in an attempt to codify and structure elements embodied in the "Daubert trilogy".

== Use ==
Although the Daubert standard is now the law in federal court and over half of the states, the Frye standard remains the law in some jurisdictions including California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Florida passed a bill to adopt the Daubert standard as the law governing expert witness testimony, which took effect on July 1, 2013.  On May 23, 2019, the Florida Supreme Court accepted the Daubert standard. On August 28, 2020, The Maryland Court of Appeals adopted the Daubert standard.
Although trial judges have always had the authority to exclude inappropriate testimony, prior to Daubert, trial courts often preferred to let juries hear evidence proffered by both sides. Once certain evidence has been excluded by a Daubert motion because it fails to meet the relevancy and reliability standard, it will likely be challenged when introduced again in another trial. Even though a Daubert motion is not binding to other courts of law, if something was found untrustworthy by one court, other judges may choose to follow that precedent. Of course, a decision by an appellate court that a piece of evidence is inadmissible under Daubert would be binding on district courts within that court's jurisdiction. An evidentiary hearing on the motion may not be necessary if the court finds that it would not assist the court in ruling on any of the matters in the motion.