 Adversarial Bias, Litigation, and the Daubert Test: An Economic ApproachMPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Abstract: The last few decades have seen a dramatic shift in the admissibility of expert testimony in American courtrooms from a laissez-faire approach to a strict standard for admissibility, often called the Daubert test. The implicit rationale behind such a stringent standard for admissibility is the trier of fact's vulnerability to adversarial bias, which many legal scholars and practitioners assume to be rampant. Employing a standard litigation model in the literature, I demonstrate that client-expert relationships may not always exhibit adversarial bias and that a litigant may voluntarily present neutral expert testimony under certain situations. I also show that a litigant is more likely to deploy hired guns if the litigation environment is more favorable to his cause. In particular, the burden of proof assignment and the court's prior belief are shown to influence adversarial bias. Keywords: litigation game; evidence distortion; adversarial bias; Daubert test (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:69978 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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