In a personal injury action governed by Alabama law, Long v. Raymond Corp., 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 20493 (11th Cir. Aug. 21, 2007), the losing plaintiff argued on appeal that the district court erroneously applied Federal Rule of Evidence 702 (and thus federal Daubert standards), rather than Rule 601 (and more lenient Alabama rules of competency), when it evaluated, and ultimately excluded, the testimony of the plaintiff’s liability expert. In ruling that the admissibility of expert testimony is a matter of federal, rather than state, law, the Eleventh Circuit distinguished between the competency of a witness and the admissibility of an expert’s opinion:

Although in some cases, Rule 601 of the Federal Rules of Evidence mandates the application of state law on issues of competency, the instant issue squarely is a question of the admissibility of certain expert testimony, rather than the competency of the witness himself. Even assuming arguendo the district court had been presented with an issue concerning [the witness’s] competency and had applied Rule 601 and Alabama's standard for competency, the district still would have remained obligated, after determining that [the witness] was competent to testify on a substantive issue in the case, to screen the testimony under Rule 702 to determine if it is otherwise admissible expert testimony.

Defense judgment affirmed.