## Facts

- Lawrence and Diane Goeb and their son moved into a home that had been treated with insecticides, including Dursban (chlorpyrifos), manufactured by Dow and applied by a pest control operator.
- After moving in, the family reported various health problems and alleged permanent injuries caused by exposure to Dursban.
- Testing in the record showed chlorpyrifos levels within normal limits by the time of later air testing.
- The Goebs sued the applicator and Dow, asserting negligence and product liability theories, including inadequate warnings and misrepresentations about safety.
- To prove medical causation, the Goebs offered expert testimony linking low-level residential exposure to their chronic symptoms.
- Dow challenged the experts’ methods as not generally accepted and lacking a reliable foundation.

## Issues

1. Whether Minnesota should replace the Frye-Mack test with the Daubert standard for admitting novel scientific expert evidence.
2. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by excluding the Goebs’ causation experts under Frye-Mack and, as a result, granting summary judgment for lack of proof of causation.

## Decision

- The Minnesota Supreme Court declined to adopt Daubert and reaffirmed Frye-Mack as the governing standard for novel scientific evidence in Minnesota.
- The court held the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the Goebs’ experts for lack of foundational reliability.
- With the experts excluded, the Goebs lacked admissible evidence on medical causation, an essential element, so summary judgment for Dow (and related dispositions) was affirmed.
- The court affirmed the court of appeals and the district court.

## Legal Principles

- Minnesota applies Frye-Mack to novel scientific evidence: the proponent must show (1) general acceptance of the underlying method in the relevant scientific community and (2) foundational reliability in how the method is applied in the case.
- Trial courts act as gatekeepers under Frye-Mack and may exclude expert opinions that rest on methods not generally accepted or not reliably applied to the facts.
- In toxic-tort cases, medical causation ordinarily requires admissible expert testimony; when a party lacks admissible proof on causation, summary judgment is appropriate.
- Foundational reliability may fail where experts do not adequately quantify exposure or do not perform a sufficiently rigorous differential diagnosis to rule out alternative causes.

## Conclusion

The Minnesota Supreme Court reaffirmed Frye-Mack as the admissibility test for novel scientific evidence, upheld exclusion of the plaintiffs’ toxic-exposure causation experts as unreliable, and affirmed summary judgment because causation could not be proven without admissible expert testimony.


Goeb v. Tharaldson, 615 N.W.2d 800 (Minn. 2000)