I missed this when it came out in October, but the New York Court of Appeals issued an important ruling on the Frye rule for the admissibility of expert testimony. The court’s ruling establishes (1) that Frye applies in New York in civil as well as criminal cases; and (2) even in cases where the evidence at issue is not novel, and thus (says the court) there is not technically a Frye issue, to lay a proper foundation for the admissibility the testimony in question must still meet a general acceptance test. Moreover, while the court thought the Appellate Division’s opinion below was too strict, in contrast to several recent opinions from other Frye jurisdictions and, for that matter, lower New York courts, the court ultimately upheld the exclusion of plaintiff’s causation evidence as too speculative. All in all, a significant loss for those who have tried to evade the strict scrutiny trend under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and the Daubert trilogy by fleeing to Frye jurisdictions.