Economics Expert’s Revenue-Per-Minute Analysis Rejected under Daubert
Posted on March 7, 2025 by Expert Witness Profiler
The copyright infringement case between Buck Goodday Woodall (“Bucky”) and The Walt Disney Company over the film “Moana” has highlighted the critical role of expert testimony in legal disputes, particularly when dealing with complex financial analyses.
Plaintiff Woodall sought to demonstrate financial damages by presenting expert testimony from Stan Smith, who proposed a “revenue-per-minute” analysis to allocate Disney+’s revenues to “Moana.” Smith’s methodology aimed to estimate the portion of Disney+’s revenue attributable to “Moana” based on viewing time.
However, Disney challenged the reliability of this analysis, arguing it failed to meet the standards set by Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and the Daubert ruling.
The Court separately excluded Plaintiff’s expert Smith from opining regarding “Disney+’s revenues” that “can be proportionally allocated to Moana based on an analysis of revenue-per-minute of home viewing” on the ground “Smith’s revenue-per-minute analysis fails to satisfy Rule 702’s reliability requirement.”
Plaintiff filed a motion for reconsideration of the Court’s order excluding Smith’s revenue-per-minute analysis.
Economics Expert Witness
Stan Vladimir Smith, Ph.D. is a nationally renowned economist who received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He is President of Smith Economics Group, Ltd., headquartered in Chicago, IL, which provides economic and financial consulting nationwide. He has worked as an economic and financial consultant since 1974, after completing a Research Internship at the Federal Reserve, Board of Governors, in Washington, D.C.
Discussion by the Court
Disney’s objections centered on the lack of sufficient data, the absence of general acceptance within the relevant community, the lack of testing and peer review, and the unknown rate of error in Smith’s methodology. They essentially argued that the method itself was unsound. Woodall countered by claiming the analysis was “reasonable under the circumstances” due to Disney’s alleged withholding of revenue data and later attempted to introduce a “material difference in law” argument based on a recent Supreme Court decision, Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy, 601 U.S. 366 (2024), which was an attempt to get the Court to reconsider the ruling.
The Court, however, sided with Disney, emphasizing the importance of reliability and adherence to the Daubert factors. The Court found that Woodall failed to demonstrate that Smith’s analysis was based on adequate data, was generally accepted, had been tested, or had a known rate of error. The “reasonable under the circumstances” argument was dismissed, as was the “material difference in law” claim, which was deemed unrelated to the exclusion of Smith’s testimony.
Held
Plaintiff failed to demonstrate a material difference in fact or law or any other basis for reconsideration of the Court’s order granting Defendant BVHE’s motion to preclude Plaintiff’s retained expert Stan Smith from opining at trial about Disney+. Accordingly, the Court denied the Plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration.
Key Takeaway:
The Court’s decision highlighted the stringent standards expert testimony must meet, particularly in complex financial matters, and underscored the importance of rigorous methodology and empirical support.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Buck G. Woodall V. The Walt Disney Company |
| Docket Number: | 2:20cv3772 |
| Court: | United States District Court, California Central |
| Order Date: | February 24, 2025 |
