The Chilling Effect: Admissible Expert Opinion and General Human Behavior The appellate court ruled that the trial court, as “evidentiary gatekeeper” had discretion to overrule the objection by HSUS to Sumner’s declarations. In addition, the appellate court, recognized Sumner’s “admissible expert opinion” on the “chilling effect” of disclosure of prepublication communication in academic research. The appellate court, as described above, did not consider this process within common knowledge, but indicated that the effect also is “consistent with commonly understood human behavior.” Citing a prior discussion of this concept by the same court in another case in which the court stated, “[T]he facts which drive our legal conclusions are not adjudicative but legislative in character. ‘Legislative facts’ refer to the basic generalized knowledge that a fact finder possesses regarding human affairs, and the way the world works.” The declarations of all the researchers included in “Economic Effects,” were not required as the court considered these other declarations as affecting the weight, not the admissibility, of the opinions offered by Sumner. The “Catch‐All” Exemption and Balancing the Interests “That is not what the trial court did.” The Humane Society of the United States. v. The Superior Court of Yolo County HSUS claimed that the court, in effect, deemed all documents exempt first, then determined whether the documents contained any evidence of improper influence. By not applying the so‐ called balancing test under section 6255 first to the documents, HSUS argued that the court had upheld a categorical exemption put forth by the Regents. The ultimate effect of this approach was to shift the burden of proof to HSUS. Indicating that HSUS’s argument was “flawed,” the appellate court, while recognizing that the court did put the documents into categories, said that the trial court did, in fact, apply the balancing test to each of the documents, citing the court’s August 2009 amended order of reference. A number of other indications that the trial court applied the balancing test to each
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