Livestock expert witnesses may advise regarding livestock accidents, farming, and livestock production. In livestock cases ranch owners have been found negligent when farm fencing was not properly maintained resulting in farm animals wandering onto a highway and causing an accident. Livestock accidents also include the deaths of farmers killed each year in cattle-related deaths after blunt force trauma to the head or chest. OSHA.com writes that “According to the National Safety Council, agriculture is the most hazardous industry in the nation.”
In Use of Experts in Livestock Accident Cases, attorney Edward A. Smith writes that “livestock accidents are amongst the cases most commonly mishandled by inexperienced attorneys.” Mr. Smith considers it “crucial that a lawyer handling these cases has the proper experts immediately available for use, including investigators, fencing experts and animal behaviorists.”