Court Limits Defense Expert's Testimony on MRI Tests

CLEVELAND - A defense expert who concludes that magnetic resonance imaging can rule out a diagnosis of manganism if test results are normal in certain individuals claiming injury from welding products cannot offer that opinion to jurors, a federal judge ruled in the latest MDL trial. Cooley v. Lincoln Electric Co., No. 1:05-CV-17734 [MDL No. 1535] (N.D. Ohio).

Judge Kathleen M. O'Malley, who presides over the federal Welding Fume Products multi-district litigation and is presiding over an ongoing trial on claims by Curtis Cooley, said in her Sept. 15 order that Dr. Scott Atlas' opinion on that issue does not …