Cite as: 522 U. S. 136 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
gation that it was not an abuse of discretion for the District Court to have rejected the experts' reliance on them.
The District Court also concluded that the four epidemio-logical studies on which respondent relied were not a sufficient basis for the experts' opinions. The first such study involved workers at an Italian capacitor 4 plant who had been exposed to PCB's. Bertazzi, Riboldi, Pesatori, Radice, & Zocchetti, Cancer Mortality of Capacitor Manufacturing Workers, 11 American Journal of Industrial Medicine 165 (1987). The authors noted that lung cancer deaths among ex-employees at the plant were higher than might have been expected, but concluded that "there were apparently no grounds for associating lung cancer deaths (although increased above expectations) and exposure in the plant." Id., at 172. Given that Bertazzi et al. were unwilling to say that PCB exposure had caused cancer among the workers they examined, their study did not support the experts' conclusion that Joiner's exposure to PCB's caused his cancer.
The second study followed employees who had worked at Monsanto's PCB production plant. J. Zack & D. Musch, Mortality of PCB Workers at the Monsanto Plant in Sauget, Illinois (Dec. 14, 1979) (unpublished report), 3 Record, Doc. No. 11. The authors of this study found that the incidence of lung cancer deaths among these workers was somewhat higher than would ordinarily be expected. The increase, however, was not statistically significant and the authors of the study did not suggest a link between the increase in lung cancer deaths and the exposure to PCB's.
The third and fourth studies were likewise of no help. The third involved workers at a Norwegian cable manufacturing company who had been exposed to mineral oil. Ronneberg, Andersen, & Skyberg, Mortality and Incidence of Cancer Among Oil Exposed Workers in a Norwegian Cable Manufacturing Company, 45 British Journal of Indus-4 A capacitor is an electrical component that stores an electric charge.
145
Page: Index Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007