## Facts

- Geraldine McCullock worked for about 16 years at a Vermont book printing and binding company.
- From 1986 to 1990, she worked near a binding machine that used H.B. Fuller’s hot-melt glue; her station was about 30 feet from an unventilated glue pot, and employees could smell fumes, especially when overheated.
- Fuller supplied a safety data sheet and product labeling warning that vapors/fumes may be irritating at application temperatures, advising users to avoid breathing fumes and to use adequate ventilation, and cautioning that overheating could generate harmful degradation products.
- The employer installed local ventilation over some glue pots, but not over the glue pot near McCullock’s work station.
- McCullock developed respiratory problems and throat polyps requiring multiple surgeries; she attributed her condition to exposure to glue fumes.
- In a diversity action, she sued Fuller for negligence and strict products liability based on failure to warn and causation.
- At retrial after a prior remand, the district court admitted: (1) testimony from an otolaryngologist that glue fumes caused McCullock’s condition, and (2) testimony from an industrial safety and ventilation consultant that she was within the “zone of exposure” and that warnings were inadequate.
- A jury found for McCullock and awarded $75,000 on each theory (negligence and strict liability).

## Issues

1. Whether the district court abused its discretion under Daubert and Federal Rule of Evidence 702 by admitting plaintiff’s expert testimony on medical causation and workplace exposure/warnings.
2. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support the jury’s failure-to-warn verdicts, such that judgment as a matter of law should have been granted to the manufacturer.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit affirmed the judgment for McCullock.
- The court held the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the experts’ testimony under Daubert and Rule 702.
- The court held the record contained sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find for McCullock on negligence and strict liability failure-to-warn theories.

## Legal Principles

- Trial courts have a flexible gatekeeping role under Daubert; admissibility turns on whether the expert’s reasoning or methodology is reliable and fits the facts at issue.
- Appellate review of expert-evidence rulings is for abuse of discretion.
- Weaknesses in an expert’s credentials, factual assumptions, or application of a method typically affect weight and credibility for the jury, not admissibility.
- Differential etiology (considering and excluding alternative causes based on history and examination) can provide a reliable basis for medical causation testimony when properly grounded in clinical practice.
- Expert qualification under Rule 702 may rest on practical experience and technical work, even without narrow academic specialization.
- In failure-to-warn cases, evidence that a manufacturer’s own safety materials acknowledge risks and recommend precautions may support findings on knowledge of hazards, adequacy of warnings, and causation.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit upheld a jury verdict against a glue manufacturer for failure to warn, concluding that the district court properly admitted both medical and experience-based industrial safety expert testimony under Daubert and that the evidence permitted a reasonable jury to find inadequate warnings and causation.


McCullock v. H.B. Fuller Co., 61 F.3d 1038 (2d Cir. 1995)