What does it take these days to get money from a Texas jury? Not much, it seems; in XTO v. Goodwin the trick was convincing a higher court that you should keep it.
Let’s start with the minefield that is the law of evidence:
- Expert opinion testimony must be based on facts, and sound reasoning and methodology.
- Conclusory or speculative opinion testimony is not relevant.
- An opinion with no factual substantiation is speculative or conclusory.
- Expert testimony based on unreliable data or flawed methodology is unreliable and does not satisfy the relevancy requirement.
- Unreliable expert testimony is legally no evidence.