Named Plaintiffs Judy Kirkbride and Beeta Lewis are consumers in Ohio and Texas that purchased prescription drugs from The Kroger Company (“Kroger”) in the last several years. They alleged that Kroger, through a deceptive pricing scheme, overcharged them for prescription drugs by misreporting the “usual and customary” (U&C) prices for Plaintiffs’ medications, which resulted in higher copayments.
Plaintiffs offered Colin Weir as a damages expert primarily to “explain how classwide damages in this case can be calculated using Kroger’s own records.” After Kroger’s experts opined that, to calculate damages in this action, class members’ claims need to be re-adjudicated over the entirety of a plan year, and that process requires additional data from pharmacy benefit managers (“PBMs”) that may not exist, Plaintiffs proffered the rebuttal expert report of Dr. Susan A. Hayes.
Defendant filed Daubert motions to exclude Colin Weir’s expert report, Susan Hayes’ expert report, and Weir’s rebuttal report.
Economics Expert Witness
Colin B. Weir is President at Economics and Technology, Inc., a research and consulting firm specializing in economics, statistics, regulation and public policy. He conducts economic, statistical, and regulatory research and analysis and often testifies as an expert witness before state and federal courts.
His experience includes work on a variety of issues, including: “calculating economic harm and damage, and analyzing liquidated damages provisions; lost profits; false claims; diminution in value; merger/antitrust analysis; Early Termination Fees (ETFs); Late Fees; determination of Federal Excise Tax burden; and development of macroeconomic analyses quantifying the economic impact of corporate actions upon the US economy and job markets.”
Pharmacy Expert Witness
Dr. Susan Hayes has over 40 years’ experience in the health care consulting, pharmacy benefit management industry. Hayes is the principal, owner, and founder of Pharmacy Investigators and Consultants.
In addition to her work at Pharmacy Investigators and Consultants, she is an Assistant Professional Practices Professor and the Director of the Health Informatics Masters Degree Program at Roosevelt University, where she teaches two of the graduate level classes. She is also a Certified Registered Pharmacy Technician in Illinois and has authored research that discusses ethical decision-making in the pharmaceutical industry.
Discussion by the Court
Motions to Exclude Colin Weir’s Testimony
Initially, the “price paid by Class Member,” according to Weir, is found in Kroger’s transactional records—a dataset of over 158 million pharmacy transactions of generic prescriptions that occurred between December 1, 2018 and November 30, 2022, in Ohio and Texas, with 38 variables describing each transaction. However, Kroger argued that Weir’s analysis “did not meet the requirements of Rule 702” for several reasons.
First, Weir allegedly lacked the “specialized knowledge” to answer the specific questions at issue: whether class members can be identified by certain Bank Identification Numbers (“BINs”) and classwide damages determined via a formula using only pricing lists and pharmacy claims data. Second, the formula Weir opines can calculate damages on a classwide basis purportedly comes directly from counsel. Finally, the “simplified methodology” proposed by Weir allegedly “ignores the complex set of payment steps that occur with each pharmacy transaction between third-party payors (“TPPs”), PBMs, pharmacies, and individual customers.”
Analysis
Ultimately, Kroger has failed to demonstrate that Weir’s testimony is inadmissible under Rule 702 and Daubert. Specifically, its first argument—that Weir lacks experience in the pharmaceutical industry to offer an admissible expert opinion on damages in this case—is foreclosed by Sixth Circuit precedent because a generally experienced expert’s “unfamiliarity with some specific aspects of the subject at hand merely affect[s] the weight and credibility of [the] testimony, not its admissibility.”
The Court held that Kroger’s second argument, that Weir’s methodology is unreliable because it relied on assumptions from Plaintiffs’ counsel, likewise missed the mark. Weir explained that his damages framework was based on Plaintiffs’ theory of liability in this case, and “it is entirely appropriate for a damages expert to assume liability for the purposes of his or her opinion.”
Finally, Defendant attacked Weir’s methodology by questioning his failure to consider certain information regarding class members’ individual drug prescription transactions in making his calculations. The Court held that Kroger’s arguments “go to the factual sufficiency of Weir’s analysis and not to the reliability of his underlying methodology.”
Motion to Exclude Susan Hayes’ Testimony
Kroger sought to exclude Hayes’ testimony, arguing that her “experience does not include calculating damages in litigation,” and that “she has no education, training, or experience in economics or accounting, let alone in calculating damages.”
Analysis
Kroger does not dispute that Hayes is qualified to opine about PBMs or the PBM industry standards and practices generally.
This Court likewise found Hayes qualified to offer expert opinions regarding PBM practices. Drawing on her decades-long experience in auditing PBMs, she has provided helpful testimony to this Court that rests on a “reliable foundation” and is “relevant to the task at hand.”
Held
The Court found that Plaintiffs have satisfied the requirements of Federal Rule of Evidence 702 to admit the expert testimony of Colin B. Weir and Dr. Susan A. Hayes.
Key Takeaway:
- Furthermore, Kroger’s argument that Weir’s methodology “is based solely on assumptions provided by Plaintiffs’ counsel” is unpersuasive, because “experts may permissibly rely on assumptions about underlying facts that are stated to them by the client.”
- Moreover, Rule 702 only requires that an expert have specialized knowledge that “will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue,” not all facts at issue.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Kirkbride V. The Kroger Co. |
| Docket Number: | 2:21cv22 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court, Ohio Southern |
| Order Date: | April 09, 2025 |
