Rochkind v. Stevenson: Maryland Adopts Daubert — What Changes for Injury Trials
Every serious injury case is, at bottom, a battle of experts. Doctors on causation. Engineers on defects. Economists on lost earnings. Which experts a jury is allowed to hear — and which get excluded before trial — decides cases long before opening statements. Late last month, Maryland rewrote the rules of that battle.
In Rochkind v. Stevenson, 471 Md. 1 (Md. Aug. 28, 2020), the Court of Appeals of Maryland retired the Frye-Reed "general acceptance" test that had governed expert evidence for 42 years and adopted the Daubert standard used in federal courts, interpreting Maryland Rule 5-702. It is the most consequential change to Maryland trial practice in a generation.
The case behind the change
Fittingly, the vehicle was a Baltimore lead-paint case — the fifth appellate round of long-running litigation between Starlena Stevenson and her former landlord. The disputed testimony came from an expert who attributed Ms. Stevenson's ADHD to her childhood lead exposure. Writing for the Court, Judge Getty used the case to resolve a question Maryland lawyers had fought over for years: whether the state's homegrown two-track system for screening experts should give way to the federal framework.
Frye-Reed vs. Daubert, in plain English
| Frye-Reed (old) | Daubert (new) | |
|---|---|---|
| Core question | Is the technique "generally accepted" in the relevant scientific community? | Is the expert's reasoning and methodology reliable and reliably applied? |
| Who it covered | Novel scientific techniques (with a separate Rule 5-702 track for everything else) | All expert testimony — scientific, technical, and specialized |
| Tools | Counting heads in the scientific community | Flexible factors: testing, peer review, error rates, standards, acceptance, and more |
| Company | A shrinking minority of states | Federal courts and the substantial majority of states |
Under Daubert, the trial judge acts as a "gatekeeper," examining whether an expert's methodology is sound and whether it actually supports the conclusions offered — guided by a non-exhaustive list of factors the Rochkind Court enumerated. The familiar considerations from the federal cases are all there: whether the theory or technique can be and has been tested; whether it has been subjected to peer review and publication; the known or potential rate of error; the existence of standards controlling the technique's operation; and whether the expert's opinion grew naturally out of independent research or was developed for litigation. General acceptance still matters; it is simply one factor among many rather than the whole test.
Just as important is what Daubert is not: it is not a license to exclude opinions merely because they are novel, or because the judge would weigh the evidence differently. The gate screens for reliable method; the jury still judges credibility and weight. That distinction will be the battleground in Maryland courtrooms for the next decade.
An honest word about winners and losers
Defense organizations celebrated Rochkind, and some plaintiff lawyers mourned it. We think the honest assessment is more balanced. Frye-Reed had become a uniquely Maryland battleground — a doctrine that generated years-long "mini-trials" over general acceptance and gave defendants a distinctive ambush tool found nowhere else. Daubert is a framework plaintiff lawyers already brief every day in federal court. It cuts both ways: the same gate that screens a plaintiff's causation expert screens the defense's hired biomechanist who opines that a "minor impact" cannot cause injury, or the defense doctor whose methodology is a records review and a conclusion.
What is certain is that expert work must now be built Daubert-proof from day one: methodology documented, literature assembled, differentials genuinely ruled out. Cases won on rigorous science will keep winning. Cases built on an expert's say-so were always fragile; now they are untenable — on both sides of the "v."
What this means for injured people in Maryland
- Your case's experts matter more than ever. Choosing physicians and specialists who can explain how they know what they know — not just what they conclude — is now a core part of case strategy.
- Expect earlier, harder fights. Daubert challenges will front-load litigation with motions practice. Budgets and timelines will reflect it.
- The change applies now. The new standard governs cases going forward, including pending cases where the issue was preserved.
- The defense's experts are exposed too. Insurers' favorite testifying doctors have methodologies of their own, and for the first time in Maryland, a single unified reliability standard applies to them.
Trials should be contests of evidence, not credentials. Done right, Daubert serves that ideal. We will be watching closely — and litigating accordingly — as Maryland's courts put the new standard to work.
If you or a loved one has been hurt, call Posey Lebowitz at (202) 524-0123 or send us a message for a free consultation.
Part of our DMV case law archive, compiled in 2026 to reflect the archive of some of the most important decisions in injury law.
Update: The Court of Appeals of Maryland, which decided Rochkind, was renamed the Supreme Court of Maryland on December 14, 2022.