by

In Determining When Your Medical Malpractice Case Has Merit, expert witness Barry E. Gustin, MD, MPH, FAAEM, and primary founder of the American College of Forensic Medicine, writes on strategy in the medical negligence case.

It has been said that a little knowledge can be dangerous. Nowhere is this more obvious than in medical negligence case analysis. The quality , credibility, and scope of the record analysis will only be as good as the reviewing individual(s). Bottom line: Choose reviewers wisely; pay appropriately. Typical costs for detailed initial case screening average $500 to $1000 depending on the size of medical records, complexity of the case, and the specialty of the reviewing physician.

Cases that are deemed provisionally meritorious should be sent for a second review by medical experts identified by the screening physicians, who are prepared to give oral testimony if called upon. Careful attention should be given to determining who the medical experts should be. Ideally, a physician consultant experienced in medical-legal matters should assist you in the identification of the appropriate medical specialists. This person can “talk shop” with the potential expert and be in a better position to decide whether any given medical expert is the right person for the case. By analogy, you, as an attorney, would be in a much better position than a layperson to recommend another reputable and successful attorney in a specific legal specialty area. Thus, it makes good sense to establish a relationship with a physician consultant experienced in medical-legal case analysis.

by

Franchise executive Don Sniegowski comments on the franchise case study by attorney Bruce Schaeffer in which Schaeffer concludes that one of the weakest links in franchisee court cases is often their own expert’s testimony.

In Challenges to the Admissibility of Expert Financial Testimony, attorney Bruce Schaeffer followed all federal and state cases involving the admissibility of expert financial testimony from 2005 through 2008. He discovered that challenges involving expert witnesses were successful some 57% of the time, meaning that only 43% of of proposed experts were allowed to testify. And, when expert testimony is successfully challenged, it almost always means the franchisee’s case will fail.

According to Schaeffer, the key point in a franchise dispute is to prove damages. For that, a franchisee needs an expert. But their proposed witness will never make it to the stand if he cannot get by the Daubert test, named after the U.S. Supreme Court case that determined that for expert testimony to be admissible, it must meet a minimum “threshold” level of credibility, namely:

Continue reading

by

In Determining When Your Medical Malpractice Case Has Merit, expert witness Barry E. Gustin, MD, MPH, FAAEM, and primary founder of the American College of Forensic Medicine, writes that “To accept or reject a medical negligence case: this is the single most important decision you will make when processing a medical negligence case.” Choosing unwisely, either a case with good potential will be lost or an unmeritorious case will tie you up for long periods of time resulting in great expense.

To make an informed decision about accepting a case, you must have the facts, not only those you obtain from your client, but more importantly, those obtained from qualified medical experts after a thorough review of the medical records.

It is not enough to have medical records reviewed by just anyone. Medical records should be screened by those specially capable of understanding and identifying all medical-legal issues. These individuals should be experienced in medical-legal analysis and board-certified in the medical specialty where the alleged negligence occurred. Even better, the medical records can be reviewed in a collaborative setting, where the records are screened by one board-certified physician who then confers with other medical specialists to form consensus opinions.

by

Even if you’ve been lucky and avoided tickets for years, being pulled over for speeding or drunken driving could cost you plenty. In First-time driving offenders don’t get off easy , AOLautos writes:

The car insurance companies are in business to avoid loss, and drunken drivers, or those arrested for DUI, represent potential profit drains. Your automobile liability insurance costs — mandatory just about everywhere — could, according to experts, double, triple or even quadruple because of a DUI, especially a DUI with a high BAC.

Even if you are capable of paying a bank-breaking new tariff, you might still lose your insurance since a number of major insurance companies are ridding their files of drivers they see as risky and can drop your coverage even if you are found not guilty.

by

Even if you’ve been lucky and avoided tickets for years, being pulled over for speeding or drunken driving could cost you plenty. Fines, legal fees, and hiring an expert witness can add up to a “financial mugging.” In First-time driving offenders don’t get off easy , AOLautos writes:

Speeding fines and penalties are, excuse the expression, all over the map; how fast you were going or where you were speeding (school zone or construction zone for example) and whether you are a first-time offender all factor in. More than half the states use a points system to record driver infraction data — the more points, the higher the fines and possible jail terms.

Although Forbes Magazine reports that the national median for a first-time offender’s fine is $200, many states are quite entrepreneurial in their penalties for first-time speeding-related offenses:

Continue reading

by

Marketing expert witness Gabriele Goldaper describes a case she worked on and questions, “WHY DID THEY SETTLE?”

My first case was regarding a small clothing company who sued their bank claiming that when the bank did not agree to extend additional credit, the bank was responsible for the clothing company going out of business. My defense, in representing the bank, was that analyzing the books and financial history of the clothing company gave me enough evidence to state that the clothing company was already on the way out. The clothing company was not assigning appropriate markups when determining their wholesale selling prices. In addition, the company had not set any quality standards for their production contractors and thus received a lot of returns from the stores/customers, because of quality related issues.

These returns could not be resold so there was a direct hit to their profit margins. The selling and marketing expenses were far above the standards for the apparel industry. Furthermore, there had not been enough attention paid to their too high payroll and associated expenses and no attempt had been made to bring these costs to a more realistic level. Management appeared to be lacking at every level. I agreed with the bank that further loans would have been extra risky. The bank had no quantifiable information or assurance of any kind enabling them to extend additional credit.

Continue reading

by

Opening arguments began last week in federal court in San Francisco in the landmark human rights case of Bowoto v. Chevron. In its seventh year of litigation, the case raises important issues regarding liability of multinational corporations in U.S. courts. Survivor Larry Bowoto and eighteen other plaintiffs are accusing Chevron of collaboration with Nigerian military in brutal suppression of a protest by unarmed villagers on a Chevron offshore oil platform in the Niger Delta in 1998. Bowoto was shot during the protest; two other protesters were killed. International business expert Michael Watts, professor at the University of California at Berkeley, is among the expert witnesses testifying in the case.

For more see: AllAfrica.com

by

Consumer products expert witness Gabriele Goldaper describes a case she worked on regarding a “needle in a stack.”

I was engaged by a plaintiff, who purchased several pairs of pants from a leading upscale sportswear retailer. At home, while trying on one of the pants and sitting down, he suffered severe, medically documented, injuries in a very sensitive area of his body, from a needle which was apparently still in the seam of the crotch area of the pants. My role was to testify about the manufacturing process and standard quality control needed in the production cycle of men’s pants.

To support my opinion that not enough necessary action was taken to avoid this unpleasant accident, I was able to find evidence of the lack of good quality control when reading the depositions of the various production managers and the records they kept. Product safety dictates that at each step of the production cycle inspections take place. In this case, there were not enough, satisfactory or detailed records to indicate that procedures where in place to assure the safety of the product. Typically a basic check at the finish line of production is to use a mechanism, much like a metal detector, to see if any metal, like a needle point, is lodged in any area of the garment. No record of such basic final inspection could be found.

Continue reading

by

Insurance expert witness Barry Zalma and principal of Zalma Insurance Consultants writes that It is Necessary to Know Insurance to Fight Insurance Fraud.

Insurance fraud is a multi-billion dollar, complex, multi-faceted problem.Those charged with investigating and detecting insurance fraud must institute a serious and detailed training program for its fraud investigators to make them knowledgeable, at the very least, about:

* How to read and interpret an insurance policy

Continue reading

by

In Five Imperatives for Expert Witnesses, SynchronicsGroup Trial Consultants, one of the oldest jury and trial consulting firms in the country, writes on “Are good experts born, or can they be trained? In this excerpt, they write on addressing the jurors ‘heart to heart.”

A third visual sign of a cooperative attitude is body orientation. A frontal orientation, where people face each other squarely, communicates interest in the interaction and a willingness to interact ‘heart to heart.’ A sideways orientation, when people literally “turn a cold shoulder” to others, indicates indifference or disinterest. And finally, when people leave the interaction, they literally “turn their back” on it, communicating their lack of interest in the other person.

Experts need to communicate clearly that they are involved in the courtroom interactions, so they will want to go out of their way to give a frontal orientation to those who address them. For instance, when addressed by the judge, it is preferable to actually turn in the chair in order to give a frontal orientation to answer the judge, instead of simply turning one’s head. When attorney clients address their experts, the experts will want to give the same frontal orientation. And even with opposing counsel, a frontal orientation is desirable because it communicates a sense of fairness and cooperation in seeking justice.

Continue reading