Expert Witness Blog

In Preparing and Presenting Expert Testimony, traffic engineer and accident reconstruction expert witness Lawrence Levine writes:

The conflict between the lawyer and the expert is quite obvious. The lawyer is committed to his client to do whatever he or she must, within the boundaries of the law, to win or get the best settlement for the case. When representing the plaintiff, he or she takes a great gamble that they may not receive any payment, even for expenses, should the case be lost or fail to settle before or during trial. The expert, on the other hand, gets paid by the hour or per diem for court appearance, regardless of the outcome.

For all the above reasons, it is essential for the consulting expert witness to have a Retainer Agreement which so states his fee schedule and the limitations of his involvement in the case. The attorney is asked to submit a retainer to the engineer before work is commenced to insure that this basis of understanding is documented and not misinterpreted.

Interior design expert witnesses may testify on space planning, green retrofits, commercial designs, and related topics. Here, Building and Design Construction writes on the holistic approach critical to green retrofits:

To make a retrofit of an old building truly sustainable, you’ve got to address all systems and aspects of the structure. That’s the lesson taken from the OXFAM Canada headquarters project in Ottawa. The 1950s-era building was given a green makeover on a tight budget-C$100/ s.f. (http://dcnonl.com/article/id42268 )

Retrofits are often limited to single items such as boilers, insulation or lighting. But Rodney Wilts, a partner with design consultants BuildGreen Solutions, says “an aggregate, holistic approach produces more meaningful results.” It seems that this strategy will pay off for OXFAM. BuildGreen expects utility bills to be about half of what they would have been without the retrofit.

Auto insurance claims expert witnesses may opine on policies, auto repairs, and injury claims. In How to Read an Auto Policy, Auto Insurance Claim Advice asks: Do you know where your auto insurance policy is?

Okay, even if you know where your auto policy is located, do you have time to read it thoroughly? Probably not.

I know this because before I was “into” insurance, my policy and all other junk mail from my insurance company went into one drawer labeled “auto insurance stuff.”

Corrosion expert witnesses may write reports and opine on galvanic corrosion, pitting corrosion, corrosion fatigue, and more. The Corrosion Technology Laboratory at the NASA Kennedy Space Center defines corrosion fatigue:

Corrosion fatigue is a special case of stress corrosion caused by the combined effects of cyclic stress and corrosion. No metal is immune from some reduction of its resistance to cyclic stressing if the metal is in a corrosive environment. Damage from corrosion fatigue is greater than the sum of the damage from both cyclic stresses and corrosion. Control of corrosion fatigue can be accomplished by either lowering the cyclic stresses or by corrosion control.

For more, corrosion.ksc.nasa.gov.

Alternative medicine expert witnesses may opine on herbal medicine, homeopathy, holistic medicine, and related topics. In his 2001 book, Over Dose: The Case Against the Drug Companies, Dr. Jay S. Cohen warned about the risks of the new, best-selling anti-inflammatory drugs such as Celebrex. A couple years later, Vioxx and Bextra were withdrawn from the market because of serious side effects, Celebrex was reduced to a third tier drug. Dr. Cohen has published papers on how to use NSAID medications as safely as possible, and notes that there are natural non-drug alternatives that can reduce pain and inflammation.

Read more: medicationsense.com.

Alternative medicine expert witnesses may opine on herbal medicine, homeopathy, holistic medicine, and related topics. Dr. Jay Cohen writes: Did You Know?

Mainstream doctors receive almost all of their information about medications from the drug industry: 90,000 sales reps, pervasive advertising, drug company-conducted studies, package inserts and the PDR that are written by the drug industry, and drug industry-underwritten continuing medical education courses. No wonder mainstream doctors’ methods are skewed toward prescription drugs.

Alternative medicine has its own problems with accurate information. On March 30, 2002, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) reported: “Many Websites Make False Health Claims: An international sweep of health related websites has uncovered more than a thousand sites that carry misleading information or make false claims.”

Runway visual range expert witnesses may opine on low visibility, visibility problems, prevailing visibility, and related topics. Visibility may have been a contributing factor in Airblue’s flight ED 202 (Airbus A321, AP-BJB) which crashed in Margalla Hills, Islamabad on 28 July 2010 killing all 146 passengers and six crew aboard.

Human error coupled with poor visibility due to low clouds may have been the reasons for the crash. After braking off due to low clouds and low visibility, ED 202 lost visual contact of the runway and the crew may have become disoriented. Air traffic controllers reportedly lost contact with the flight crew during its attempt to land in dense fog and heavy monsoon rain. In this poor visibility the crew may have focused on 7th avenue as runway 12 and approached it for landing.

Insurance expert witnesses may advise on issues involving insurance claims, insurance adjusters, property insurance, and related issues. Adjusters, appraisers, examiners, and insurance investigation experts may have experience working for property and casualty insurance companies, for whom they handle a wide variety of claims alleging property damage, liability, or bodily injury.

Their role is to investigate the claims, negotiate settlements, and authorize payments to claimants, all the while mindful not to violate the claimant’s rights under Federal and State privacy laws. They must determine whether the customer’s insurance policy covers the loss and how much of the loss should be paid to the claimant. Although many adjusters, appraisers, examiners, and investigators have overlapping functions and may even perform the same job, the insurance industry generally assigns specific roles to each of these claims workers.

Adjusters and examiners investigate insurance claims, negotiate settlements, and authorize payments; appraisers assess the cost or value of an insured item; investigators deal with claims about which there is a question of liability and where fraud or criminal activity is suspected.