The fact that courts have a prodigious responsibility to carefully screen expert testimony not only for “relevance” but also for “reliability” is beyond question. This task is called “gatekeeping.” If reliable and relevant, the expert’s testimony enters through the admissibility gate. If unreliable, the gate is shut and entry is denied. This judicial screening burden was amply described (and illustrated) in the U.S. Supreme Court’s famous trilogy of decisions in the 1990s—Daubert, Joiner and Kumho Tire.1 The Daubert reliability criteria are reflected in Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and the Advisory Committee comments.

This article surveys a potpourri of recent gatekeeping rulings readers may have missed. Lengthy analysis of case facts is omitted. Rather, the pith and substance of the decisions are specified along with interesting insights or glosses that should be noted. The first case in our gatekeeping survey is Dash v. Mayweather, a Sept. 26 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.2 This was a copyright infringement action against the boxing champion, Floyd Mayweather, and others complaining that the song “Yep,” which was played during Mayweather’s entrance at two World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) events, infringed plaintiff’s copyright in a musical composition called “Tony Gunz Beat” (TGB). Following discovery and a number of stipulations, the South Carolina district court bifurcated liability and damage issues addressing the latter first.

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