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This section contains the nature of the case and procedural background.

Between 1997 and 2004, Chiquita Brands International (D) paid over $1.7 million to the AUC, a paramilitary group designated as a foreign terrorist organization. The United States learned of D's payments to the AUC and charged the company with engaging in transactions with a specially designated global terrorist organization. D pled guilty. Ps sued D alleging that D's financial support of the AUC led to the group's murder of their family members and loved ones. D moved for summary judgment on multiple grounds. The district court concluded that Ps had not presented sufficient admissible evidence demonstrating that the AUC was involved in the death of their family members and loved ones and therefore could not show the existence of a genuine issue of material fact for an essential element of their claims. It ruled in part that the ultimate expert opinions regarding AUC involvement in the deaths of the bellwether decedents were inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 in part because they '[did] not involve the application of reliable methodologies or principles.' It was granted and Ps appealed. One of the three categories of evidence in dispute was statistical data relating to AUC/paramilitary patterns of violence in relevant geographic areas of Colombia. The district court excluded testimony by Ps’ experts, Oliver Kaplan and Manuel Ortega who were experts in armed conflict. One such category of expert evidence was termed 'geographical and temporal evidence.' This evidence consisted of statistical data relating to AUC and paramilitary patterns of violence in the relevant regions of Colombia, which was compiled by Ps' experts. The district court reasoned that the manner in which the experts formed their opinions-'simply collect[ing] historical crime war statistics' as a basis for deducing an AUC connection to the victims' deaths-did not satisfy the requirements of the Federal Rules of Evidence. Mr. Kaplan opined that 'almost all (90 percent) of the killings of civilians in the bellwether victims' municipalities during the timeframe of this case were committed by paramilitaries.' He provided a history of the AUC, explained its rise to power, and detailed the group's motives and the reasons behind its use of violence, chosen crimes, and infliction of widespread terror. He described the modus operandi of the AUC, both generally and as it pertained to the bellwether decedents. He stated that the AUC targeted political enemies, banana workers, and unionists, often using lists of names to identify its victims. He detailed some of the methods the AUC used to target and kill victims, including driving white or grey cars, taking people off of buses, and torturing and decapitating victims. He corroborated the Ps' accounts of each of the murders, providing information as set out in 'news sources, NGO reports, paramilitary testimonies . . ., and human rights violation and armed conflict datasets.' He expressly stated that his conclusion was 'supported by similar modus operandi, timing, and geography, . . . the general patterns of violence committed by the AUC[,] . . . [and] direct verification of bellwether victim cases and their details via human rights violation and conflict databases and paramilitary testimonies that confess to the murders.' Given the full universe of information on which Mr. Kaplan relied, the court abused its discretion in excluding his opinion. Mr. Ortega, a former special agent with the FBI was involved in the FBI's investigation of Chiquita's payments to the AUC. Mr. Ortega examined temporal, geographical, and circumstantial evidence to opine that the violent crimes committed against the six victims (he was hired to evaluate 'were probably all committed by the paramilitaries.' Despite not having reviewed any police or autopsy reports for any of the decedents, and acknowledging that 38% of 'selective assassination[s]' in all of Colombia were committed by paramilitaries (including, but not limited to, the AUC), Mr. Ortega concluded that the six decedents were probably killed by the AUC. How Mr. Ortega jumped from the 38% figure to his ultimate opinion is not clear. Mr. Ortega offered nothing to support the conclusory statement that the 'vast majority' of the 38% of murders-which is necessarily less than 50% of the murders in Colombia-were committed by the group in control. Mr. Ortega didn't adequately explain how the 38% figure allowed him, based on his expertise, to opine that the decedents were probably murdered by the AUC.

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