Briana Leakas v. Monterey Bay Military Housing, LLC

Background

Briana Leakas, her minor son D.L., and Theodore Leakas, Leakas’s spouse and D.L.’s guardian ad litem, brought claims for personal injuries they attributed to toxic mold contamination in a home they leased from defendants while living on the U.S. Army Garrison Presidio of Monterey from about June 2019 through May 2020. The defendants removed the action from state court because the events occurred on a federal enclave. After an earlier dismissal with permission to amend, the operative complaint asserted ten state and common-law claims, including negligence, nuisance, negligent misrepresentation, emotional-distress claims, habitability and quiet-enjoyment claims, gross negligence, premises liability, constructive eviction, and fraud by concealment.

The defendants moved to exclude the testimony of Andrew Heyman, M.D., one of the plaintiffs’ retained medical experts. Dr. Heyman proposed to testify that Leakas met diagnostic criteria for chronic inflammatory response syndrome, or CIRS, because of mold exposure at the property, and that the exposure caused immune dysfunction, chronic inflammation, fatigue, neuropsychiatric symptoms, and other health complaints.

Legal standard

Federal Rule of Evidence 702 permits qualified expert testimony only when the proponent shows that it is more likely than not that the testimony will help the factfinder, is based on sufficient facts or data, results from reliable principles and methods, and reliably applies those principles and methods to the case. The court described its role as screening expert testimony for scientific validity and reliable application. The plaintiffs had the burden of establishing admissibility.

Court’s analysis

The defendants argued that CIRS is not generally accepted in the medical community and that Dr. Heyman’s opinions lacked reliable methods, testing, data, and qualifications. The plaintiffs argued that CIRS was a jargon term used by a “mold” medical community for a functionally equivalent condition known as systemic inflammatory response syndrome, or SIRS. The court noted that SIRS appeared to be recognized, but found that the materials presented did not establish that CIRS and SIRS were simply different names for the same diagnosis.

The court did not need to conclusively resolve whether the validity of CIRS should be left to cross-examination because it found more fundamental reliability problems with Dr. Heyman’s causation opinions. Dr. Heyman had not examined Leakas. He reviewed medical records, test reports, literature, and another expert’s report. He was not a certified industrial hygienist or toxicologist. The environmental testing he relied on included testing performed after remediation, and the plaintiffs did not provide other property testing that Dr. Heyman used. The court found that the plaintiffs had not shown that he had the specialized knowledge needed to determine the level of mold exposure or to interpret the environmental data as proving exposure to enough mold for a sufficient period to cause Leakas’s conditions.

The court also found that the report did not identify a reliable method for linking the alleged exposure to Leakas’s health conditions. The plaintiffs referred to an evidence-based test and published research, but they did not provide the cited article or explain the test’s standards, rigor, or relationship to reliable toxicology principles. The court distinguished a California appellate decision because that case involved test data showing high mold levels and an expert who addressed a recognized respiratory effect of mold exposure.

Finally, the court found that Dr. Heyman’s differential diagnosis was inadequately explained. A differential diagnosis is a method of identifying the most likely cause of a medical condition by considering possible causes and ruling out those that are not supported. Dr. Heyman stated that he had ruled in biotoxin illness and ruled out other diseases, but his report did not explain what his workup involved, how he reached those conclusions about Leakas, or what scientific methods he used to eliminate other causes. The court found this omission especially significant because the record indicated that Leakas had other medical conditions, including conditions the defendants said predated her residence at the property. The court also found that the report did not meet Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2)’s requirement that an expert disclose a complete statement of opinions, their bases and reasons, and the facts or data considered.

Disposition

The court concluded that the plaintiffs had not shown that Dr. Heyman’s proposed testimony more likely than not satisfied Rule 702. It granted the defendants’ motion to exclude Dr. Heyman’s testimony. The opinion addressed the admissibility of the expert testimony and did not resolve the merits of the plaintiffs’ ten underlying claims.