Articles Posted in Expert Witness Testimony

The failure to properly control traffic was a key factor in the death of Northern York County, PA, Regional Police Officer David Tome, an accident reconstruction expert witness testified Friday. Former Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Steven Rickard was the first witness called by the attorney representing Joanna L. Seibert, 39, of 28 Clemens Drive. She allegedly struck and killed Tome on Route 15 in Franklin Township two years ago.

Rickard testified that drivers were given little to no advance warning that officers were in the area investigating a previous fatal accident. He said there were no warning signs and only a few cones to direct traffic into the other lane. He also said the failure to put up warning signs was a “significant” factor in Tome’s death.

Read more: yorkdispatch.com.

A Sheffield, UK, man bled to death in the hospital after an “error of judgment” by an experienced surgeon, an inquest has ruled. Andrew Vernon, aged 38, of Moorwinstow Croft, Dore, died after Dr. Dermot Gleeson tried to take a sample of what he thought was a polyp in his stomach, but instead split what was in fact a high pressured ‘varix’ vein.

Deputy Coroner Judith Naylor recorded the fatality as death by misadventure after an independent general surgery expert witness told the inquest Dr. Gleeson’s actions were a “significant error of clinical judgment.” Dr. Jonathan Green, the independent expert assigned by the inquest to investigate the death, said “stalk like” formation of varix veins were rare – but still “well described” in books. He added everything possible had been done to save Mr Vernon’s life. Coroner Naylor said: “I fear Dr. Gleeson made an error of judgment.”

Read more: thestar.com.

Trucking expert witnesses may opine on federal motor carrier safety regulations and the Department of Transportation (DOT), as well as other issues. Trucking experts at the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) recently issued a press release, coming out in support of the newly proposed Motor Carrier Protection Act of 2010.

Warning that with the introduction of the new bill, that “bad brokers’ days are numbered,” they applauded the legislation that would significantly increase regulatory oversight of brokers and freight forwarders in the trucking industry.

The senate bill was introduced by Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). S. 3483 was introduced in response to concerns about unscrupulous brokering practices that prey upon small business truckers. The two senators worked closely with the OOIDA as well as the Transportation Intermediaries Association in developing this legislation. The Motor Carrier Protection Act of 2010 legislates an increase in the broker bond from $10,000 to $100,000 and expands that bond requirement to freight forwarders. It increases requirements and disclosures for any person or company seeking to obtain broker or freight forwarder authority.

Entertainment and media expert witness Constance Penley, whose testimony was disallowed by the Santa Barbara judge in the John Stagliano obscenity trial, spoke out on Thursday about porn, obscenity and Stagliano himself. Penley says with every technological advance, there’s a greater democratization of sexual explicit expression through film, video, photography and the Internet, allowing more people access to sexual explicit material.

The pornography expert says many people don’t think it’s important to define pornography. She says they think they already know what pornography means, which is not just sexually explicit expression, but that it is obscene, has no 1st Amendment protection and therefore can be banned. Penley teaches film and media at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Read more:xbiznewswire.com.

The defense team for Peter Brown has chosen not to call him to give evidence at his trial in the death of jockeys Jamie Kyne and Jan Wilson in the fatal fire of September 5, 2009. Fire expert witness Philip Reed testified on the different factors involved in the tragic blaze at Buckrose Court flats in Norton, UK. The fire expert witness testified that it is not possible to determine whether the blaze developed through flames or smoldering because there wasn’t enough evidence of the fuel that fed it, and the way that fuel was arranged, or “configured”.

For more, see racingpost.com.

Prosecutors rested their case Thursday against a Billings, MT, woman charged with aggravated assault after an expert in child abuse told the District Court jury that the 8-month-old victim’s injuries could not have happened from an accidental fall. Dr. Wilbur Smith, a nationally known expert in child abuse and child brain injuries, testified at the trial of Nevada Ugalde, who is accused of causing severe injuries to the child she was baby-sitting on June 11, 2008. Smith said he determined that the injuries suffered by the child, Isaiah Napier, were the result of abuse.

The brain injury expert witness said the child will suffer some permanent brain damage due to the severity of the injuries. Ugalde’s defense attorney has said the woman will testify at her trial. Ugalde denies harming the child, saying the child fell out of a crib.

Excerpted from billingsgazette.com.

Forensic psychiatry expert witness Dr. Montgomery Brower testified today that accused killer John Odgren gave varying accounts of the fatal Lincoln Sudbury High School stabbing to cope with what happened. Odgren, 19, is on trial for first-degree murder for the Jan. 19, 2007 stabbing death of classmate James Alenson, 15. His defense attorneys do not dispute that Odgren, then 16, fatally stabbed Alenson, but say he was legally insane when the crime occurred.

Brower is the third defense expert witness to testify Odgren was out of his mind at the time of the stabbing and is not criminally responsible for his actions.

For more, see bostonherald.com.

In 2003, Racine County requested bids for a consultant to upgrade its software and train its employees in using it. Oracular Milwaukee, Inc. was awarded the contract. But the project didn’t go as planned, and Racine sued Oracular for breach of contract and statutory misrepresentation. In a case decided April 2, the Wisconsin Supreme Court concluded that the issues at stake were not so complex as to require testimony from a contracts expert witness.

The court wrote: “[W]e do not close the door to the possibility that expert testimony may later assist the trier of fact in evaluating Racine County’s breach of contract claim. Our point is only that in the posture of summary judgment, Racine County was not required to name an expert witness as a matter of law.”

For more, see wislawjournal.com.

Newzbin, the Internet’s premier Usenet indexer, has lost its High Court case against several Hollywood movie studios. Justice Kitchin found the company, which turned over more than £1 million in 2009, liable for copyright infringement and will issue an injunction restricting its activities later this week. The London High Court showdown between Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount, Disney, Columbia Pictures and Newzbin Ltd ended earlier this month.

The claimants used Andrew Clark, Head of Forensics at Detica Limited, as their copyrights expert witness. His description of Usenet was not challenged in court.

Excerpted from torrentfreak.com.

In a $242 million lawsuit VirnetX alleges Microsoft’s Office Communicator and other products infringed upon its patents on technology for automatic and secure virtual private networks, or VPNs. On March 17th, Microsoft attorney Matthew Powers, of Weil Gotshal & Manges, cross-examined computers expert witness Mark T. Jones, an electrical and computer engineering professor at Virginia Tech who testified in favor of VirnetX.

The Scotts Valley, Calif., company of 12 employees alleges Microsoft infringed two of its patents – Nos. 6,502,135 and 7,188,180 – on technology for secure and automatic virtual private networks, or VPNs. In its defense, Microsoft is arguing that the patents are invalid largely because the technology was obvious – in this sense, a legal term – and that Microsoft’s Windows XP, Windows Vista, Office Live Communicator and other products did not infringe.

For more, see seattlepi.com.