Plaintiff, Edward Montelongo, alleged that he has developed asbestosis due to exposure to asbestos through his work at various facilities, including Avondale Shipyards, Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp., and Shell Oil Company’s Norco and Yscloskey facilities.
Defendant Huntington Ingalls Incorporated’s (formerly, “Avondale”) asked the Court to preclude Plaintiff’s industrial hygiene expert, Gerard Baril, from opining at trial that Plaintiff’s work with and around asbestos-containing products contaminated his home because Plaintiff carried asbestos fibers home with him on his clothing, leading to continued asbestos exposure long after Plaintiff ceased that work.
Industrial Hygiene Expert Witness
Gerard L. Baril has worked in the field of occupational safety, industrial hygiene, and environmental health since 1978. Baril has practiced industrial hygiene (starting as an industrial hygiene technician) since 1982.
Over the decades, he has conducted hundreds of industrial hygiene surveys qualifying and quantifying workers’ exposures to a wide array of airborne contaminants including asbestos.
Discussion by the Court
In this case, Avondale did not contest that Baril was qualified to testify as an expert. Rather, Avondale challenged the reliability of Baril’s “contaminated house” opinions, arguing that they were “scientifically unreliable, methodologically unsupported, and inadmissible because they do not follow any accepted procedure, standard, or analytical framework recognized in industrial hygiene for determining whether a residence is contaminated with asbestos.” However, as Plaintiff argued, Baril “cited numerous references that support his opinions, including published, peer-reviewed literature, publications by governmental and scientific organizations, as well as occupational exposure standards and regulations.”
Therefore, Baril’s testimony is sufficiently reliable to satisfy the Court’s gatekeeping function under Daubert.
Held
The Court denied Avondale’s motion to partially exclude the testimony of Plaintiff Edward Montelongo’s retained industrial hygiene expert Gerard Baril.
Key Takeaway
It is the role of the adversarial system, not the Court, to highlight weak evidence. The fact that opposing parties do not agree with the facts relied upon by an expert, or with the expert’s interpretation of those facts, does not render the expert’s opinions unreliable. Challenges related to the basis of an expert’s opinions are thus best suited for cross-examination, not exclusion.
Please refer to the blog previously published about this case:
Pulmonary Medicine Expert’s COPD Opinions Admitted
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Montelongo V. Bayer Cropscience, Inc. |
| Docket Number: | 2:25cv555 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana |
| Order Date: | May 19, 2026 |
