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In Life-Care Planners Can Help Simplify Damages For The Jury, vocational evaluation expert witness and life care planner Ronald T Smolarski writes on to determine what care and how much money a chronically or catastrophically disabled individual will need for the rest of his or her life.

Some attorneys representing either the plaintiff or the defendant in such cases are now getting the expert help they need from specially trained rehabilitation consultants called “life care planners”. Life care planners do exactly what the name implies: they formulate life care plans – detailed descriptions of special damages the disabled individual suffered, what progressive disablement can be anticipated and, most importantly, the present and future monetary costs of all necessary care.

In doing this, the life care planner deals in actual dollar figures, not “guesstimates”. This allows the jury to understand what the disabled person needs, currently and in the future, and why. As a result, the specialized training of a life care planner can simplify the plaintiff attorney’s job, strengthen the case and make the settlement more realistic in terms of future needs. For the defense attorney, the life care planner can point out case weaknesses, exaggerations and unnecessary costs.

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Steve Roensch, President of Roensch & Associates and metallurgy expert witness, discusses Finite Element Analysis:

FEA is applied to many types of problems, such as temperatures in consumer electronics, airflow around aircraft, and magnetic fields in electric motors. By far the most common application is structural FEA — determining how a solid body responds to various forces.

The structural problem amounts to writing down some “governing equations” that describe the material and how it behaves, and then solving those equations for the physical part being analyzed subject to how it is held and loaded. This can be done on paper for some simple part shapes. The resulting “closed form solution” is another equation that provides the answer in terms of the basic variables, such as the part’s dimensions.

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In FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS: Post-processing, Steve Roensch, President of Roensch & Associates and failure analysis expert witness, discusses FEA:

The finite element method is a relatively recent discipline that has quickly become a mature method, especially for structural and thermal analysis. The costs of applying this technology to everyday design tasks have been dropping, while the capabilities delivered by the method expand constantly. With education in the technique and in the commercial software packages becoming more and more available, the question has moved from “Why apply FEA?” to “Why not?”. The method is fully capable of delivering higher quality products in a shorter design cycle with a reduced chance of field failure, provided it is applied by a capable analyst. It is also a valid indication of thorough design practices, should an unexpected litigation crop up. The time is now for industry to make greater use of this and other analysis techniques.

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Steve Roensch, President of Roensch & Associates and metallurgy expert witness, discusses Finite Element Analysis:

Many legal professionals are exposed to Finite Element Analysis (FEA) in the courtroom and hire metallurgists to study failures across many industries..Finite element analysis is regularly applied to a vast array of products when something bending or breaking is an issue. FEA is applied to many types of problems, such as temperatures in consumer electronics, airflow around aircraft, and magnetic fields in electric motors. By far the most common application is structural FEA — determining how a solid body responds to various forces.

Having a fundamental understanding of how the method works can help an attorney (i) recognize when FEA can strengthen a case, (ii) choose a capable expert and (iii) develop meaningful challenges to the opposition’s expert. As discussed in the last issue of Courtroom FEA, if a loss, injury or death is due to something bending or breaking, FEA can help identify the cause of failure and hence the responsible party.

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Judge Tom Yeager will preside over the seating of a grand jury in St. Tammany Parish, LA, which will determine if Amanda Gutweiler Hypes is re-indicted in connection with the 2001 Tioga house fire that claimed the lives of her three children. Hypes’ 2002 indictment was thrown out in 2006 when the judge said that the lead prosecutor with the Rapides Parish District Attorney’s Office had erred in showing secret grand jury proceedings to a fire expert witness.

Hypes’ attorney, Mike Small, has said the expert witnesses expected to testify before the grand jury are “absolutely convinced the fire is not arson.”

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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 showing an open posture to the jurors:

Show an Open Posture to the Jurors The first ingredient of a winning courtroom style is to show an open physical attitude, which illustrates an open psychological attitude. The jurors’ perceptions of an expert’s honesty, sincerity, self-confidence and leadership is formed by how open or closed the expert presents herself to them. The expert who exhibits an open attitude will elicit openness from the jurors; the expert who closes off from the jurors will see the same posture mirrored back from them. The following gestures communicate an open, honest, cooperative attitude:

Keep the abdomen open

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In Lemon Law Resources: Litigation Process, Attorney Sergei Lemberg writes regarding discovery:

Discovery is the longest part of a lemon car case: it begins soon after a lawsuit is filed and often does not stop until shortly before trial. During discovery, each side asks for information about the facts and issues of the case. Information is gathered formally through written questions (known as interrogatories), requests for documents, and requests for admission (which ask each side to admit or deny statements of fact).

Discovery includes questioning the dealer personnel, representatives of the manufacturer and/or any expert the manufacturer may have hired. Often, a claim or defense requires support from expert witnesses to explain technical information or validate an argument. One or more experts might be needed to testify about the connection between the manufacturer’s and the dealer’s conduct, the defects in the vehicle, and the loss suffered by the plaintiff or the existence and amount of the plaintiff’s damages. Expert witnesses work closely with representatives and attorneys to prepare the case. The plaintiff’s attorneys may retain and ASE Certified Master Mechanic to inspect the lemon vehicle and write a report.

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A Louisiana District Court judge acquitted two men of 48 counts of dogfighting on Wednesday. Although Kathy Strouse, a superintendent for the Chesapeake Animal Control Unit in Virginia, was brought in as a dog expert witness by the United States Humane Society, the judge said a state prosecutor failed to provide substantial evidence of their involvement in the illegal sport.

Floyd Boudreaux Guy faced charges after an investigation led Louisiana State Police officers on March 11, 2005, to seize 57 pit bulls the officers believed were being used for illegal dogfighting. The dogs were seized from the men’s Youngsville home. Expert witness Strouse was involved in the dogfighting prosecution of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick. Dogfighting has been illegal since 1982.

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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 showing an open posture to the jurors:

Show one’s hand

Some people approach life like a poker game: cautious, leery and holding their hands close to their chest so no one can see what’s up their sleeve. This attitude may be appropriate in some places, but not inside the courtroom.

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Defense witnesses began testimony Tuesday in the case against Brian Nichols. On March 11, 2005, Nichols was on trial for rape when he allegedly overpowered a deputy, took her gun, and went into the Fulton County, Georgia, courtroom and shot both the judge and a court reporter. Nichols is also charged with killing a sheriff’s deputy outside the courthouse and a federal agent a few miles from the courthouse.

In his taped confession, Nichols said Federal Agent David Wilhelm pulled a gun on him. He also said actually pulled the trigger to try to shoot him. Nichols claimed he heard a click, that the gun misfired and he shot and killed Wilhelm in self-defense but prosecutors say that is impossible. Wilhelm wore thick rubber work gloves that night and it would have been impossible to fire a gun while wearing them. According to ballistics expert witness Bernadette Davy, Wilhelm’s weapon did not misfire.