Articles Posted in Expert Witness Testimony

Animal expert witness Greg Kaufman, President of the Pacific Whale Foundation, testified this week in a court hearing on on behalf of three environmental groups. The groups are seeking an injunction against the Superferry to stop operations during an environmental study. The StarBulletin writes:

As an expert witness, Kaufman has responded to questions on whale population, breeding grounds, seasonal activity, vessel speed restrictions, vessel routes and research on whale-vessel collisions.

During cross-examination yesterday, Superferry attorney Bruce Lamon questioned Kaufman about a Feb. 10, 1998, incident near Kihei in which an agent with the Pacific Whale Foundation was accused of violating the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The alleged violations included failure to allow an inspection of research activity records by the National Marine Fisheries Service, Lamon said. He said a $5,000 fine was issued, along with a warning for alleged violations.

Motor vehicle crash injury expert witness Michael Freeman testified Tuesday that assumptions in an Allstate claims handling manual about how much force passengers endure in low-speed wrecks have no scientific basis. “These numbers are impossible, and they are just made up,” said Freeman, an epidemiologist at Oregon Health and Science University testifying in the second day of a $1.425 billion civil trial in Fayette Circuit Court challenging Allstate Insurance Co.’s claims handling practices. Kentucky.com also reports:

The document estimated the G-force placed on passengers and the speed of a crash based on the type of property damage to certain vehicle models. Freeman said the figures are significantly underestimated and scientifically impossible. ‘This is obviously a bogus document,’ Freeman said.

Freeman testified as an expert witness for Geneva Hager of Richmond, who claims that Allstate purposefully dragged out her injury claim in a 1997 wreck. Her lawyers argue that Allstate’s claims handling practices, implemented in 1995, violate Kentucky’s Unfair Claims Settlement Practices Act. They are specifically attacking how Allstate assesses minor-impact soft-tissue injury cases, or MIST claims.

In Higher Benchmark For Class Actions Ameet Sachdev of the Chicago Tribune writes:

Demanding more evidence of wrongdoing and scrutinizing expert witnesses may, some say, bar many consumers from access to courts. Judges are raising the bar on class-action lawsuits, demanding more evidence of the alleged wrongdoing and even holding mini-trials of expert witnesses before deciding whether to enable many plaintiffs to sue as one.

The expanded scrutiny is designed to weed out frivolous suits that have drawn the scorn of businesses and inspired federal legislation imposing limits on class actions. But critics say it also threatens to deprive consumers of a legal recourse that has been used through the years to reshape the nation’s economic and social landscape.

LaVon Chisley, 23, a former Penn State football player from Maryland, was convicted Friday of murder in the stabbing death of former roommate Langston Carraway. Chisley was found guilty of first- and third-degree murder based on DNA evidence and expert witness testimony. The footprint expert witness testified that a pattern left by a shoe on the victim’s linoleum floor matched the wear pattern on shoes owned by the defendant.

At one time Chisley had a promising football career, but he was kicked off the Penn State team because of poor grades and at the time of the murder he was $50,000 in debt. He may have been after the cash that Carraway, kept in his apartment.

BaltimoreSun.com goes on to write:

Friday’s arguments in the class-action lawsuit against DuPont and New York-based T.L. Diamond & Co. mark the end of the first phase of what could be a four-part trial. Both sides attempted to discredit each other’s expert witnesses in the lawsuit which alleges that DuPont and Diamond dumped arsenic, cadmium and lead on the site of a former plant. The plaintiffs are seeking long-term medical monitoring, property damages, and punitive damages paid to thousands of people in and around Spelter, W. Va. Environmental expert witnesses testified on testing methods, comparison standards, and dangers to humans. According to BusinessWeek.com:

An attorney for some of the residents said the former zinc-smelting plant left “a big cancerous tumor” in a small West Virginia community, and DuPont should be required not only to clean up the mess but also to monitor the health of the people living around it.

Defense attorneys, however, say there is no evidence to support that claim, and DuPont capped the site so it might someday be redeveloped. “It cannot be denied that DuPont did good things here,” insisted defense attorney Jeffrey A. Hall.

Environmental expert witness Erwin Iskandar said Thursday that Sutiyoso’s Jakarta administration should be held responsible for the massive floods that crippled the city in February. Iskandar is the head of Trisakti University’s research institute and said the local administration should have been able to properly anticipate the February floods. The governement has been criticized for failing to anticipate the floods. The JakartaPost.com also reports the expert witness stating:

‘Jakarta has been flooded for the past 400 years. With the help of his advisors, the governor should have been able to anticipate (the floods) through a number of efforts, including fixing the flood gates built during the Dutch colonial era’… The February floods inundated around 70 percent the national capital, paralyzing transport and commerce and forcing many to move to makeshift shelters… Thursday’s hearing was part of a court case filed by Jakarta residents represented by non-profit organization Jakarta Residents Forum (Fakta) against the administration and Sutiyoso. The residents alleged both the governor and his administration had been negligent in their efforts to prevent and deal with the consequences of the flooding.

Fracturing her skull and suffering permanent disabilities while ice skating, a patron of the Ice House Skating Rink in Carey, NC, filed a liability suit against the rink. The expert witness in her case testified that the skating rink should have had an employee patrolling the ice to stop unruly skaters and post signs warning against horseplay. The sports and recreation expert witness said the Ice House was negligent in not having a rink guard on the ice surface as required by the Ice Skating Institute of America. However injuryboard.com also reports:

Upon a motion made by lawyers for the Ice House Skating Rink, the trial judge dismissed the case without allowing a jury to rule on whether the Ice House was liable to the patron for her injuries. Because of her head injuries, the injured customer has no memory of the fall and could not locate any witnesses who saw the accident. However, her family members testified that a boy told the clamant that he was sorry shortly after the accident. In holding that the claimant’s evidence was not sufficient, the Court of Appeals wrote: “Given the lack of information about how plaintiff fell, the current record is devoid of evidence that supports an inference that a rink guard could have prevented the fall. Accordingly, the statement by teenage boy does not establish that an act or omission by defendant caused the plaintiff’s damages.”

This case demonstrates the difficulty of proving liability when there are no eyewitnesses to the occurrence in question.

Linda Moreno, defense lawyer for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, rested their case by asking the federal jury to look beyond what she described as “fear-mongering and politically motivated charges against a Muslim charity.” Much of closing arguments was spent trying to discredit the other side’s expert witness testimony. Nathan F. Garrett, a federal prosecutor, told the court “I just don’t think they (the terrorism expert witnesses for the defense) know much about what matters in this case.” NewYorkTimes.Com also reports:

Stressing her client’s years of work helping impoverished Palestinian children, a defense lawyer on Wednesday asked a the government has accused of financing the terrorist group Hamas. Her client, Ghassan Elashi, the former chairman of the charity, the “did not support Hamas,” said the lawyer. “He supported his people,” who are living amid poverty and violence.

But the government, in its conclusion to this closely watched prosecution, said the foundation was, from its inception, linked to radical groups promoting jihad. Like Hamas, it was “born in the bosom of the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Nathan F. Garrett, a federal prosecutor, using a phrase he repeated several times during his almost three-hour summation.

Dr. Alex Zakharia, a Florida surgeon, admitted Tuesday to creating the impression that he was the lead surgeon for numerous coronary artery bypass grafts – when he had never performed such surgeries. The expert witness testified at the trial of a doctor accused of medical malpractice at the Ann Arbor Veterans Administration. Zakharia pled guilty to contempt of court and under a plea agreement, he faces up to a year in custody. He must also make restitution with affected parties and retire from medical practice by the end of the year. mlive.com also reports:

Authorities said he testified as an expert witness in 2002 on behalf of a plaintiff charging a doctor at the VA with medical malpractice in connection with a coronary artery bypass graft.

…felony charges pending against him for perjury, mail fraud and wire fraud will be dismissed. He will be sentenced Dec. 11.

In Prescription for Powerful Expert Testimony, Trial Magazine, May 2007, Deborah J. Gander advises to take these steps in order to get the most powerful testimony from your expert:

1) Make sure that your expert understands the legal elements that you have to prove in order to win your case.

2) If the deposition was months or years before the trial, refresh the expert’s memory before they get on the stand.