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More on Searchsystems.net v. Musselman:

U.S. District Court Judge Maxine Chesney awarded SearchSystems.net $780,000 in damages against convicted Cyber-Pirate Mark Musselman and his website, courtsonline.org. Internet expert witness Carole Levitt stated that “Searchsystems was an original and unique website which defendants copied–both the content and organization–and thus violated Search Systems intellectual property rights.” California News Wire reports Pacific Information Resources, Inc.’s President/CEO Tim Koster, whose Thousand Oaks, California company operates www.searchsystems.net as stating :

‘Hundreds of thousands of consumers have discovered, in purchasing their ‘public records access subscriptions’ from websites such as courtsonline .org, websherlock .com, detectivechoice .com, webinvestigator .org, restrictedonly .com, cisworldwide .com and datahounddetective .com, that eventually their subscription does not ‘work.’ Their access to the full data base is ultimately denied,’ Koster explained. ‘These confused consumers do not realize that they purchased their subscriptions from a website that had no authorization to sell access to Search Systems’ content.’ In response to the flood of e-mails from angry and confused consumers, SearchSystems.net initiated a series of lawsuits against these alleged cyber-pirates….

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SearchSystems.net, a highly regarded site for researching public records, obtained a judgment of $780,000 in San Francisco U.S. District Court this week against convicted Cyber-Pirate Mark Musselman and his website, courtsonline.org. Internet expert witness Carole Levitt stated that “Searchsystems was an original and unique website which defendants copied–both the content and organization–and thus violated Search Systems intellectual property rights.” California News Wire reports:

Musselman was sentenced earlier this year to 12 years in prison and over $4.6 million in criminal fines and penalties on a 47 count cyber-fraud conviction in Montgomery County, Ohio Common Pleas Court. Subsequently, he was declared liable under a ten count complaint for Internet consumer fraud by the Miami County, Ohio Common Pleas Court, under a similar set of facts as those presented to the Federal District Court in San Francisco, which entered this week’s Judgment and Permanent Injunction.

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In How They Can Squeeze More Miles From the Gallon, December 05, 2007, Marianne Lavelle writes on how car manufacturers can make more fuel-efficient cars. In her article, Lavelle tells us about the 244-page decision handed down in September by Vermont Federal Judge William K. Sessions regarding California’s effort to force carmakers to limit their greenhouse gas emissions. Lavelle writes:

The short version is that the judge agreed with California’s (fuels) expert witness, who estimated that the initial increased vehicle cost for consumers would be about $1,500. Not only would this be offset by about $5,000 in fuel savings over the car’s lifetime, if fuel is $3 per gallon, but the judge said it is likely the premium would be only temporary. “The automobile industry has historically been very effective at improving the quality of necessary technology while decreasing its cost,” he said. Sessions said the estimate by the automakers’ expert witness, that more fuel efficiency would cost consumers $5,000 per car, was inflated because he had not considered these already available technologies.

For more please see Beyond the Barrel.

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In 2004 Clinton San Francisco and his wife, Jessie, sued Wendy’s over what they said was a bad hamburger bought in Charleston. In 2006 Kanawha Circuit Judge Paul Zakaib said the doctor who treated Clinton and a food expert witness were not qualified to serve as experts in the case under state trial rules but the State Supreme Court justices handed down a recent decision saying that a jury can hear the expert witness testimony and decide whether or not it’s credible.

The Charleston Daily Mail also reports:

Chief Justice Robin Davis said in a separately written opinion that she hoped the state’s lower courts would take heed of the San Francisco decision.

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The Georgia Supreme Court decided last week in favor of tighter expert witness rules. Their 5-2 decision on the SB 3 provision (O.C.G.A. ยง 24-9-67.1(c)), is a rare defense victory in the state. Atlanta defense lawyer R. Page Powell Jr. says the state Supreme Court’s ruling is “a very fair, very reasonable threshold requirement for expert competency.” The ruling says that medical malpractice expert witnesses must have “actual professional knowledge and experience in the area of practice or specialty in which the opinion is to be given.” The Daily Report also writes:

The court hasn’t decided an unrelated state Supreme Court appeal, Mason v. Home Depot, S07A1486, challenging another part of the law establishing a more general rule that tightens standards for admission of expert testimony in all civil cases. That rule is sometimes known as the Daubert rule for the 1993 U.S. Supreme Court case to which federal rule makers responded in crafting a similar, but not identical, rule of evidence.

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In Utilizing Experts In An Expert Way, Kelli Hinson and Tesa Hinkley describe the crucial role expert witnesses have at trial and give advice on how best to use them. In this excerpt, Hinson and Hinkley give tips on ensuring that testimony is based on science.

Contrary to what many believe, expert testimony in litigation is not always based on rigorous quantitative analysis of the data involved in a case. Too often, we hve seen experts provide analysis that does not scientifically demonstrate the validity of their claims.

For example, we were recently contacted by a lawyer seeking an industry expert who could opine on the impact that a particular song on a CD had in influencing sales of that CD. We stressed that the question should be addressed in a scientifically rigourous way, and therefore the client decided to retain an economist. The plaintiff side retained an industry expert who formulated an opinion based solely on her experience, not on science. Her testimony was stricken on a Daubert challenge and consequently the plaintiff could not present damages testimony at trial.

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WebWire writes that computer forensic expert witnesses:

…deal with some of the most grave and serious of criminal cases that involve digital evidence. However it may be surprising to hear that currently there is no regulatory body to ensure the quality of their work, their security, and the expert’s individual’s background.

It is a different case for those forensic companies who work for prosecuting bodies such as police forces and law enforcement agencies, as they are normally independently regulated by the instructing body and undergo rigorous vetting. Forensic companies working solely for the defence however, have the same access to the same evidence involved in these cases, yet nobody is actively monitoring their activities. In theory a one man band with a computer and the appropriate software could take on criminal defence cases which range from fraud, terrorism and drugs offences, to indecent images of children and grooming charges.

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In Utilizing Experts In An Expert Way, Kelli Hinson and Tesa Hinkley describe the crucial role expert witnesses have at trial and give advice on how best to use them. In this excerpt, Hinson and Hinkley give tips on ensuring an effective audit process.

Extensive work goes into producing reports in litigation. The case team supporting the experts should have an audit process in place that ensures that all analyses were performed correctly and that factual statements can be verified from orignial source documents. In addition, the audit process should make certain that no information in the report is the result of only one person’s input or review.

Excerpted from the ABA Expert Witness Alert, Summer/Fall 2007

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In Utilizing Experts In An Expert Way, Kelli Hinson and Tesa Hinkley describe the crucial role expert witnesses have at trial and give advice on how best to use them. In this excerpt, Hinson and Hinkley give tips on agreeing on an outline and defining the scope of the analysis.

Experts can often help attorneys better define the questions that will advance their case, as well. From an expert’s standpoint, the goal is to define questions that are sufficiently narrow to fall within his or her specialty, while also being broad enough to be useful to the client. Some experts are comfortable defining an expansive scope of research, whereas ohters prefer defining a narrow scope. Equally important as defining the questions effectively is defining them early. The expert and their support team should discuss the questions as soon as practicable, and the attorneys should provide their insights to get the team headed in the right direction with the right information. This significantly reduces the likelihood of spending time on research that ultimately does not become part of the expert’s opinion.

Excerpted from the ABA Expert Witness Alert, Summer/Fall 2007

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In Utilizing Experts In An Expert Way, Kelli Hinson and Tesa Hinkley describe the crucial role expert witnesses have at trial and give advice on how best to use them. In this excerpt, Hinson and Hinkley give tips on agreeing on an outline and defining the scope of the analysis.

In some cases, a significant initial stumbling block is defining the question or questions you want the experts to address. Choosing the right questions and establishing the scope of the analysis have obvious implications for your budget; they are also relevant to determining how many experts you retain. Experts may be helpful in guiding you on which questions they think they can answer. Expect the outline to change over time, but ensure that the experts do not stray from their area of expertise. While experts should provide the most rigourous analysis of the facts of the case, they should also know when certain matters are better addressed by other witnesses, be they fact witnesses or experts in other areas.

Excerpted from the ABA Expert Witness Alert, Summer/Fall 2007