In June 2020, Keith Kirksey complained to his employer, Oriental Trading Company, about a noose placed in his workspace. He later complained about a clown head with what he perceived as a noose around its neck. He sued his employer for race discrimination, retaliation, and a hostile work environment.
In January 2025, a clinical psychologist evaluated him. The psychologist conducted a diagnostic interview and gave two standardized tests. He diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder, persistent depressive disorder with paranoid ideation, and generalized anxiety disorder. He tied those conditions to Kirksey's time at the company. The employer asked the Court to limit that testimony. On March 9, 2026, the Court denied the motion.
Forensic psychiatry and psychology apply the methods of mental health practice to legal questions. These experts interview the person, review records, give standardized tests, and measure what they find against published diagnostic criteria. Courts hear from them when a claim includes emotional or psychological injury. The jury must decide whether a disorder exists, what caused it, and what it will mean for the person's future.
This article reviews four rulings, from 2004 to 2026, in which courts admitted psychiatric or psychological testimony over a challenge.
Where These Experts Appear in Litigation
Three of the four cases arose from employment. Redmond v. City of East Point involved a claim of co-worker sexual harassment. Ceballos-Germosén v. Sociedad para la Asistencia Legal involved claims of sex and national origin discrimination. Kirksey v. Oriental Trading Co. involved claims of racial harassment. The fourth, Tardif v. City of New York, arose from alleged police conduct during the 2012 Occupy Wall Street protests.
Both sides retain these experts. Three of the featured experts testified for the plaintiff that a disorder existed and that the defendant's conduct caused or worsened it. Two testified for the defense. One concluded that the plaintiff did not have PTSD at all. The other concluded that the plaintiff had not been exposed to the kind of event the diagnosis requires.
The experts addressed four kinds of questions. The first was diagnosis, usually measured against the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The second was cause, including whether events at issue aggravated a condition that already existed. The third looked ahead to prognosis, permanency, and treatment. The fourth, raised by the defense, was whether the claimed disorder was present.
The challenges followed familiar lines. Defendants argued that the experts relied on what the plaintiff told them. They argued that the experts failed to rule out other causes, such as earlier conditions and life events. In Redmond, Defendant argued that the psychiatrist gave no psychological tests and did not rule out malingering. Plaintiffs challenged the defense experts in turn. In Redmond, Plaintiff argued that the defense expert misread the diagnostic criteria. In Tardif, Plaintiff argued that the defense psychiatrist skipped a differential diagnosis.
All four rulings came on motions under Rule 702 and the Daubert framework before trial.
The Rulings
Redmond v. City of East Point: A Clinician's Experience and a Dispute Over the DSM
Redmond v. City of East Point, Georgia, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Civil Action File No. 1:00-CV-2492-WEJ, decided March 26, 2004.
Juanita Redmond sued the City of East Point under Title VII for co-worker sexual harassment. She also brought state law claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress, battery, negligent retention, and invasion of privacy. The case was headed to a jury trial.
At the final pretrial conference on March 17, 2004, both sides told the Court they wanted to challenge each other's experts. The Court noted that the motions were untimely under local rules. Because trial was already being delayed by a week, it set an expedited schedule and decided them.
Plaintiff's expert is a psychiatrist with 32 years of clinical experience. He has diagnosed and treated hundreds of patients with PTSD and schizophrenia, including patients who suffered sexual trauma. He has taught psychiatry, trained others in PTSD, and supervised other clinicians. He opined that Redmond suffers from PTSD because of the alleged conduct.
The City attacked his qualifications. It argued that he had never lectured on PTSD in workplace harassment and had done no studies on it. It added that he had little experience as a trial expert. The Court disagreed. The record showed that he had lectured or presented on sexual harassment and PTSD. An expert may be qualified by experience. A lack of specialization goes to weight, not admissibility.
The City also attacked his method. He had not reviewed Redmond's sworn statement to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or all volumes of her deposition. He gave no psychological tests. His report did not show that he ruled out malingering or other diagnoses. The Court held that medical professionals may reasonably rely on a patient's self-reported history. If that history proves inaccurate, cross-examination is the tool. It found his method reliable and denied the motion.
Defendant's expert reached the opposite view. Her November 2002 report found "little support for the diagnosis, PTSD." She concluded that Redmond had not been exposed to an event that meets the DSM's first criterion for PTSD. Plaintiff conceded that she was competent to testify as an expert. Plaintiff argued that she misread the criterion as to sexual assault, relying on a DSM-IV guidebook.
The Court denied that motion as well. It relied on a Ninth Circuit decision holding that a variance from the DSM's criteria does not automatically make a diagnosis unreliable. The disagreement fell within the range where experts might reasonably differ, and Plaintiff could cross-examine her on it.
Both experts were cleared to testify. The Court also denied a motion to exclude Plaintiff's life care planner, whose plan rested on the psychiatrist's recommendations.
Tardif v. City of New York: No PTSD, So No Differential Diagnosis Needed
Tardif v. City of New York, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 13-CV-4056 (KMW), decided October 1, 2018.
Mary Tardif took part in the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2012. She sued the City of New York, its police department, and several officers. She alleged that she was harmed on March 21 and April 16, 2012. By the time of this ruling, her surviving claims included excessive force, deliberate indifference to a serious medical need, and assault and battery. She contended that the officers' conduct worsened her PTSD.
Defendants' expert is a psychiatrist. Tardif did not question his qualifications. The Court found him qualified to testify on PTSD given his academic credentials and his experience in psychiatry.
He reviewed Tardif's medical records and examined her for four and a half hours. During the examination he gave the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III, the same test Plaintiff's expert had used. He opined that Tardif does not have PTSD. He wrote that her willing participation in the protests, and her return to the site, was not consistent with the disorder. Based on his observations, she did not show its symptoms. The only PTSD symptom she reported to him was nightmares, which he could not verify.
Tardif moved to exclude him. She argued that he had not performed a differential diagnosis. She argued that his conclusion conflicted with those of her own expert and her other doctors. She also argued that he had not read the articles her expert relied on. And he had not accounted for the events of March 21, 2012.
The Court denied the motion. It held that his opinion rested on conventional methods for a psychiatric diagnosis: a records review and his own examination. A differential diagnosis matters when an expert opines on causation. Because he concluded that Tardif had no PTSD at all, causation was not part of his opinion.
The conflict with other experts went to weight, and so did the remaining criticisms. Tardif could explore any weaknesses on cross-examination.
The Court also found the testimony helpful to the jury. A juror who believed that Tardif showed no PTSD symptoms could conclude that the arrests neither caused nor worsened the disorder. Tardif had argued that causation was not in issue. The Court called that argument "plainly incorrect," because a claim that conduct worsened PTSD requires proof that the conduct caused the worsening.
In the same order, the Court refused to bar evidence of Tardif's mental health history before January 2012. It held that this history was relevant to both liability and damages.
Ceballos-Germosén v. Sociedad para la Asistencia Legal: Aggravation of a Pre-Existing Disorder
Ceballos-Germosén v. Sociedad para la Asistencia Legal, U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, No. 3:16-cv-02944-JAW, decided October 28, 2022.
On November 7, 2016, Fremia Ceballos-Germosén sued Sociedad para la Asistencia Legal (SAL), her employer. She alleged discrimination based on sex and national origin, retaliation, and a hostile work environment. On October 7, 2020, the Court granted summary judgment against her retaliation claims. Her Title VII discrimination claims against SAL and her Puerto Rico law claims went forward.
Plaintiff's expert is a psychiatrist. Her December 2018 report found that Ceballos-Germosén has major depressive disorder. She described it as a "life-long mental illness" that predated the job, marked by recurrent episodes. She opined that Ceballos-Germosén suffered an aggravation of a previous mood disorder as a result of her alleged problems at work.
SAL moved in June 2022 to bar her from testifying about emotional injuries, the effect of the work incidents, prognosis, and permanency. It pointed to deposition testimony that the condition "remained more or less the same" despite the work issues. It argued that the expert lacked a factual foundation for what happened at work. It argued that she offered no scientific method linking the incidents to the injury. It also argued that she never addressed prognosis or permanency in her report, and that her deposition could not fill that gap.
The Court denied the motion on every ground. A pre-existing disorder did not mean that work could not aggravate it. The Court found that the expert's view would help the jury with "what is often an amorphous and subtle question." The jury had to decide how much of the condition predated the job, and what effect the job had.
On method, the Court cited a 2019 District of Puerto Rico decision listing approaches courts routinely accept for these experts. They include record review, personal interviews, patient observation, standard psychological tests, and background facts. Her report showed that she reviewed extensive medical records, including treatment by a psychologist and a psychiatrist, and conducted a thorough interview. That satisfied Daubert.
On foundation, the Court made a practical point. "Medical doctors are almost never witnesses to the accident, trauma, or event that brought their patients to their care." Rule 703 lets experts rely on facts they are made aware of. The expert had taken a detailed history of the job, and any weakness in it went to weight.
On prognosis and permanency, the Court found that her report alone was sufficient. It noted that the First Circuit, in a 2022 decision, had looked at both an expert's report and deposition. Here, the deposition added further support. The Court set a final pretrial conference for December 5, 2022.
Kirksey v. Oriental Trading Co.: Self-Report, Testing, and Alternative Causes
Kirksey v. Oriental Trading Co., U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska, Case No. 8:24CV268, decided March 9, 2026.
Keith Kirksey began working for Oriental Trading Company on or about June 1, 2017. He alleges that he experienced a series of racially targeted incidents there. On July 2, 2024, he sued under Title VII and the Nebraska Fair Employment Practice Act. He also brought a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Plaintiff's expert is a clinical psychologist licensed in Nebraska since 1973. He holds a bachelor's degree in psychology and a doctorate in clinical psychology. Over a 50-year career, he saw patients in private practice. He also served as director of behavioral science at the University of Nebraska and Clarkson Family Medicine. He has written articles and books.
He used a diagnostic interview, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2, and the Sachs Sentence Completion Test. He diagnosed PTSD, persistent depressive disorder with paranoid ideation, and generalized anxiety disorder, and tied the symptoms to Kirksey's time at the company. He recommended psychotherapy and suggested that Kirksey explore medication with a medical doctor and a trauma therapy called EMDR.
The company sought to limit him to the role of a treating provider. It argued that his opinions rested only on what Kirksey and his counsel told him. He had not reviewed past medical records to rule out other causes. It argued that he was not qualified to discuss medication or EMDR. It also pointed to deposition testimony in which he retreated from his weekly therapy recommendation.
The company also argued that the testimony was irrelevant because the June 2020 incident fell outside the statute of limitations. The Court left that question for its ruling on summary judgment. It held that the expert's opinions on Kirksey's conditions and their source were relevant to the ultimate issues.
The Court denied the motion. His limited opinions on medication and EMDR fell within a clinical psychologist's purview. He had considered other causes, such as childhood trauma, and found them unlikely based on his testing and experience. Kirksey's sentence completion responses did not suggest lifelong paranoid ideation, and his prior security job did not fit the current symptoms. When shown a prior provider's records, the expert did not change his opinion. The company had identified no plausible alternative cause.
On self-report, the Court noted that he held about 16 sessions with Kirksey that confirmed his diagnosis. He explained that a patient's perceptions matter to a diagnosis and that his experience lets him test a patient's truthfulness. "Relying on a patient's reports as to the source of their mental distress does not necessarily render an expert's conclusions unreliable," the Court wrote.
The change in his therapy recommendation went to weight, not admissibility. The company could test his opinions through cross-examination and contrary evidence.
What the Rulings Have in Common
Experience carried qualifications. In Redmond, 32 years of clinical practice qualified a psychiatrist to testify about PTSD in a harassment case. The Court held that he did not need research or lectures specific to workplace harassment. In Kirksey, a 50-year career in clinical psychology supported opinions on related treatments the expert did not provide himself.
On method, the courts accepted the ordinary tools of clinical practice. Interviews, record reviews, and standardized tests such as the MMPI-2 and MCMI-III all appeared. So did the DSM. In Ceballos-Germosén, the Court cited a list of methods that courts in the district routinely accept for psychiatrists and psychologists.
Self-report did not defeat admissibility. Redmond held that clinicians may reasonably rely on a patient's history, with inaccuracies left for cross-examination. Kirksey reached the same result, noting the expert's 16 sessions and his explanation of how he tests what a patient says.
Alternative causes were weighed with care. In Kirksey, the expert explained why he set aside childhood trauma, and the company named no plausible alternative. In Ceballos-Germosén, a pre-existing disorder became part of the opinion, which addressed aggravation directly. In Tardif, the Court held that an expert who finds no disorder does not need a differential diagnosis.
Disputes over the DSM went to the jury. In Redmond, a defense expert's reading of the PTSD criteria survived Plaintiff's challenge because experts might reasonably differ.
Defense experts did not face qualification fights in these rulings. Plaintiff conceded the Redmond defense expert's competence, and Tardif did not question the defense psychiatrist's qualifications. The battles were over method and over how the diagnostic criteria applied to the facts.
On fit, each opinion addressed a live issue in the case. The questions were whether a disorder existed, whether the defendant's conduct caused or worsened it, and what the future held.
Practical Points for Attorneys
A pre-existing condition does not by itself defeat a causation opinion. Ceballos-Germosén shows the value of an expert who acknowledges the earlier disorder and frames the opinion as aggravation. Tardif shows the defense side of the same point. The plaintiff's mental health history stayed in the case as relevant to liability and damages.
An alternative-cause challenge needs specifics. In Kirksey, the company argued that the expert had not reviewed past medical records, but it identified no plausible alternative cause. The Court said that gap strengthened its conclusion that his method was reliable.
A defense expert who concludes that no disorder exists answers a different question from one who offers a different cause. Tardif held that the first kind of expert does not need a differential diagnosis.
A defense expert who examines the plaintiff in person stands on firmer ground. In Tardif, the defense psychiatrist's four-and-a-half-hour examination, together with a records review, was the basis on which the Court found his method conventional.
Self-report is open to attack, but mainly at trial. In Redmond and Kirksey, gaps in the records the expert reviewed and reliance on the patient's account went to weight. The Kirksey expert's ongoing sessions and his explanation of how he tests a patient's account helped answer the objection.
Report contents matter. In Ceballos-Germosén, the expert's report addressed prognosis and permanency, which defeated an argument that those opinions were never disclosed.
Timing matters too. In Redmond, the parties raised their expert challenges at the final pretrial conference. The Court noted that the motions were untimely and heard them only because trial had already been delayed.
Five Experts Cleared to Testify
The four rulings span 22 years and four federal circuits. They involve two psychiatrists for plaintiffs, one clinical psychologist for a plaintiff, and two experts for the defense. One treated the plaintiff over many sessions. One examined the plaintiff once for four and a half hours. One built an opinion around a disorder that predated the job. In each case, the Court looked at the expert's training, the tools used, and the record behind the opinion. Then it let the testimony go to the factfinder.
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