Jensen v. Camco Manufacturing, LLC

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: January 8, 2026
• Docket: 24-7092
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JAN 8 2026 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ERICK JENSEN, an individual, No. 24-7092

Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. v. 2:23-cv-00266-DGC CAMCO MANUFACTURING, LLC, a foreign corporation, CWI LLC, a foreign MEMORANDUM* corporation, GOOD SAM ENTERPRISES, LLC.

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona David G. Campbell, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted January 5, 2026** Phoenix, Arizona

Before: HAWKINS, RAWLINSON, and M. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judges.

Erick Jensen (Plaintiff) appeals the district court’s order excluding expert

testimony and granting summary judgment in favor of Camco Manufacturing, LLC

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

1 (Camco) and CWI, LLC (Camping World) (collectively, Defendants). We have

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and we affirm. See City of Pomona v. SQM N.

Am. Corp., 750 F.3d 1036, 1043 (9th Cir. 2014) (reviewing summary judgment

ruling de novo and “evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion”).

Plaintiff purchased a Camco Little Red Campfire (Campfire) sold by

Camping World. While Plaintiff was using the Campfire, flames “exploded” from

the device, causing severe burns to Plaintiff’s leg. Plaintiff subsequently filed an

action alleging product liability, negligence, and breach of implied warranty. He

retained an engineering expert, Dr. Bosch, to establish causation.

Under Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, a court may admit expert

testimony when the testimony is helpful, “based upon sufficient facts or data,”

produced by “reliable principles and methods,” and reliably applied “to the facts of

the case.” Cooper v. Brown, 510 F.3d 870, 880, n.6 (9th Cir. 2007). “In

evaluating expert testimony, the trial court is a gatekeeper, not a factfinder.”

Pyramid Technologies, Inc. v. Hartford Cas. Ins. Co., 752 F.3d 807, 813 (9th Cir.

2014) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “If the proposed testimony

meets the thresholds of relevance and reliability, its proponent is entitled to have

the jury decide upon its credibility, rather than the judge. . . .” Elosu v. Middlefork

Ranch Incorporated, 26 F.4th 1017, 1024 (9th Cir. 2022) (citation, alteration, and

internal quotation marks omitted).

2 Dr. Bosch utilized a methodology known as “differential diagnosis,” by

which an expert “rules in all potential causes of an [accident], rules out those for

which there is no plausible evidence of causation, and then determines the most

likely cause among those that cannot be excluded.” Hardeman v. Monsanto

Company, 997 F.3d 941, 953 (9th Cir. 2021) (citation and internal quotation marks

omitted).

In performing tests on the Campfire, Dr. Bosch identified three potential

defects: (1) lack of a screen to prevent objects from entering the combustion

chamber, (2) heightened gas pressure from the regulator1, and (3) missing sealant

on pipe threads that could contribute to leakage. However, during Dr. Bosch’s

investigation, he discovered no blockage or debris in the combustion chamber, and

only one leak that, by his own admission, “wouldn’t [have been] sufficient to cause

the incident described by [Plaintiff].” See Clausen v. M/V New Carissa, 339 F.3d

1049, 1058 (9th Cir. 2003) (explaining that “a fundamental assumption underlying

differential diagnosis is that the final, suspected cause must actually be capable of

causing the injury”) (citation, alterations, and internal quotation marks omitted).

When Dr. Bosch failed to discover a root cause of Plaintiff’s injuries, he

resorted to speculation, commenting that “obviously,” “[y]ou’ve got the transient

blockage somewhere,” despite being unable to identify any blockage. See Ollier v.

1 Dr. Bosch averred that this defect was “not related to his causation opinion.”

3 Sweetwater Union High School Dist., 768 F.3d 843, 861 (9th Cir. 2014) (noting

that “speculative testimony is inherently unreliable”). Indeed, Dr. Bosch conceded

that, based on his testing, a “transient blockage” combined with a leak “would be

insufficient” to create the incident that injured Plaintiff.

Based on this record, we agree with the district court that Dr. Bosch did not

ground his testimony in “reliable principles and methods.” Fed. R. Evid. 702(c).

Thus, the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the expert

testimony. See Grodzitsky v. American Honda Motor Co., Inc., 957 F.3d 979, 987

(9th Cir. 2020) (reasoning that a district court did not abuse its discretion when it

excluded expert testimony that was unreliable and the product of flawed

methodology). Without any expert testimony establishing causation, Plaintiff

failed to raise a material issue of fact that the Campfire caused his injury. See

Engilis v. Monsanto Co., 151 F.4th 1040, 1055 (9th Cir. 2025) (affirming summary

judgment when an expert’s “excluded opinion was the sole evidence upon which

[Plaintiff] relied to establish causation”). Accordingly, the district court did not err

in granting summary judgment in favor of Defendants. See id.

AFFIRMED.