Articles Posted in Expert Witness Testimony

Risk management expert witness Robert Maughan testifed on the damage real estate values sustained in Port Colborne, Ontario, Canada, as a result of historical contamination at the Inco refinery. The class action suit against the nickel giant led by Eric Gillespie on behalf on the plaintiff wants to establish the correlation between neighborhood property contamination, which first came to light in 2000, and falling real estate values in the city following Inco’s disclosure.

The expert witness is a program manager of risk management services for financial markets at Teranet and relied heavily on Teranet’s Real Estate Automated Value (REAV) System from 2005 forward and actual selling prices and MLS listings back to 1998 to chart market impacts in Port Colborne. His data showed a definite market downturn on real estate after 2000 when compared to the neighboring municipalities of Fort Erie and Welland.

Excerpted from www.wellandtribune.ca

A settlement has been struck in a group of lawsuits filed by 190 people who claimed they were injured by working around asbestos and other dangerous materials during remodeling at the Salinas, CA, Courthouse. The plaintiffs – courthouse employees, attorneys, a judge and others who worked in the north courthouse wing – all will receive compensation under the omnibus settlement reached during the past few months, an attorney said Thursday. The large number of plaintiffs and defendants and the two-year duration of the construction work being scrutinized were complicating factors. Attorneys were just beginning their work with expert witnesses.

Terms of the settlement were confidential, though one estimate put the total around $5 million.

The settlement covers plaintiffs in three separate lawsuits, later rolled into a single case being heard by Judge Barry Hammer of San Luis Obispo County. The case was moved earlier this year to Santa Clara County at the request of the main defendants, a pair of construction management companies. The courthouse workers and other plaintiffs claimed they were exposed to asbestos, toxic dust and other hazardous materials that were released into the air by demolition work in 2005 and 2006.

Poultry production in the Illinois River watershed multiplied over the past half-century, a scientist testified Thursday in Oklahoma’s pollution lawsuit against the Arkansas poultry industry. Companies went from producing about 12 million birds in 1950 to about 152 million in 2002, said J. Berton Fisher, one of Oklahoma’s expert witnesses.

Oklahoma is suing 11 poultry producers, including Tyson Poultry Inc., Tyson Chicken Inc., Cobb-Vantress Inc., Cargill Turkey Production LLC, George’s Inc., George’s Farms Inc., Peterson Farms Inc. and Simmons Foods Inc., accusing them of polluting the one million-acre watershed with bird waste. Pollution expert witness Fisher also testified about how the watershed’s hills, thin soils and rocky, porous terrain allowed contaminants to seep into streams and groundwater. For decades, farmers have used chicken litter as a cheap fertilizer to grow other crops. Oklahoma argues runoff from those fields contains bacteria that threatens the health of people who fish and raft in the watershed each year.

Excerpted from www.newstin.com.

A Bellingham, WA, neurosurgeon being sued for medical malpractice testified that modern medicine hasn’t progressed enough to prevent the brain damage his patient suffered at St. Joseph Hospital in October 2004. Dr. David Goldman took the witness stand Thursday, Oct. 1, and told a Whatcom County Superior Court jury he did everything possible to prevent the damage Carol Martin suffered Oct. 7, 2004, following neck surgery. Goldman performed that surgery on Martin, but a blood clot formed in her neck afterward, a rare but known complication. That restricted her breathing, caused swelling and eventually led to severe, permanent brain damage.

“This was a very bad outcome, and we all felt terrible about this tragedy,” Goldman testified. “There is nothing I think I could do. This is the limit of what modern medicine can do. That’s very hard to accept and live with, but that’s my job.” Otorowski and Golden called orthopedic surgeon expert witness Dr. Mark Palumbo to the stand last week to criticize Goldman’s care of Martin and say it was below the standard of care.

Martin, her husband, Stanley, and her children sued Goldman, anesthesiologist John Schroeter and the hospital in 2007. The trial finished its third week Thursday and continues Monday. The Martins’ attorneys, Christopher Otorowski and Thomas Golden, have estimated damages to be $3.7 million to $5.4 million.

Aquatics expert witness and president of a national parasail operators association Arrit McPherson testified in a Coast Guard hearing Friday that he routinely takes two safety steps in his business, either of which may have been critical in preventing the deaths of two women Aug. 28 while parasailing at Ocean Isle Beach. The expert witness told Lt. Chester Warren, the Coast Guard’s lead investigator into the accident, that he has his marine radio on when he takes customers on parasail flights. Before they embark, he has them read safety information that includes how to unhook the harness from the sail if they land in water. That is reinforced verbally and with demonstrations once customers are aboard.

Those steps were not taken for N.C. Watersports customers the day Cynthia Woodcock of Kernersville, N.C., and Lorrie Shoup of Granby, Colo., were killed. Witnesses who were on the N.C. Watersports boat with the victims when the incident occurred said they got no safety information before or during that 1 p.m. trip. The line connecting them to the boat broke and the women were carried to their death near the Ocean Isle fishing pier.

Excerpted from charlotteobserver.com.

Medical expert witness Dr. Mark Palumbo testified Wednesday in the medical malpractice lawsuit against St. Joseph Hospital, WA, and two doctors. After having surgery at the hospital Oct. 7, 2004, a blood clot formed in Martin’s neck, which restricted her breathing and caused swelling and eventual brain damage. The expert voiced criticism of the care Martin received from neurosurgeon David Goldman and said the brain damage she suffered following surgery was preventable.

“The standard of care was not met for Carol Martin,” Palumbo testified. “It’s a known complication. You must have knowledge of the potential ramifications. I believe the … brain damage was preventable in this case.” Palumbo is one of several expert witnesses to give testimony critical of Goldman, Schroeter and the nursing staff.

Excerpted from www.bellinghamherald.com.

Based on a ruling from a Charleston judge, Bausch & Lomb Inc. plans to seek to dismiss the majority of active lawsuits stemming from the 2006 global recall of a top-selling contact lens solution. David C. Norton, chief U.S. District Court judge in Charleston, last week granted the eye-products maker’s request to exclude the testimony of a medical expert in more than 1,000 complaints that have been filed by individuals.

Bausch & Lomb already has paid out more than $250 million to settle about 600 lawsuits linking MoistureLoc to a potentially blinding fungal infection known as Fusarium keratitis. But after a three-day hearing in New York in June on the admissibility of expert evidence, Norton said in an Aug. 26 ruling that there is no reliable scientific basis in the 1,024 remaining complaints for arguing that MoistureLoc caused various eye infections. He said attorneys who were relying on the opinion of corneal specialist Dr. Elisabeth Cohen to support their cases “did not submit any peer-reviewed studies, articles or case reports concluding that there is a causal relationship” between MoistureLoc and the infections.

Excerpted from postandcourier.com.

Samuel McCargo faced cross-examination Friday in the final session of his trial on charges of professional misconduct while representing former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in the text message scandal. McCargo’s lawyers want to use Thomas Cranmer, a Detroit criminal defense lawyer, as a legal malpractice expert witness to counter the allegations that McCargo crossed ethical boundaries while representing Kilpatrick and working out the $8.4-million settlement in the 2007 police whistle-blower trial.

McCargo, who could lose his law license, is accused of covering up perjury and other misconduct, hiding evidence and lying to investigators about his actions after text messages surfaced showing Kilpatrick and his top aide Christine Beatty lied under oath.

Excerpted from www.freep.com.

In the recent case of Freed v. Geisinger Medical Center, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that a nurse was qualified to testify as a medical malpractice expert witness. The ruling overturned a prior decision by the Court of Common Pleas, which had disallowed the testimony, stating that a nurse is not qualified to give a medical diagnosis. In this medical malpractice case, allegations of substandard care were leveled against the nursing staff at a rehabilitation hospital where the plaintiff, Rodger Freed, was being given rehabilitative treatment for a spinal cord injury that left him a paraplegic.

The state Supreme Court stated that to qualify as an expert witness in a given field, a person needs only to “possess greater expertise than is within the ordinary range of training, knowledge, intelligence, or experience.” This ruling means that in cases where nursing care standards are breached, and that breach causes an injury, a nurse can testify to the causes of that injury.

Excerpted from 24-7pressrelease.com.

A handwriting expert told Manhattan Supreme Court jurors on Tuesday that Brooke Astor “very probably” penned her signature on a will update – one prosecutors charge was forged. “I believe this is an authentic signature,” Alan Robillard, a former FBI documents examiner expert, told the jury weighing evidence against Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, 85, and lawyer Francis Morrissey, 66. Marshall and Morrissey are being tried on charges of fraud and grand larceny for swindling Astor out of $60 million in a series of will updates in 2004, four years after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

Robillard was the first defense witness called in the case. The expert’s testimony contradicted that of Gus Lesnevich, a forensic document examiner called by prosecutors. He said he had “absolutely no doubt” the signature was not Astor’s.

Excerpted from nydailynews.com.