Expert Witness Blog

In Environment, Highways to Benefit from ‘Safe and Efficient Transportation Act (SETA) of 2010, ATA trucking experts write:

The American Trucking Associations (ATA) strongly supports the “Safe and Efficient Transportation ACT (SETA) of 2010, S. 3705, introduced Aug. 4 by U.S. Senators Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.). The legislation will allow states to authorize the operation of more efficient commercial trucks, resulting in safer highways, cleaner air and less costly freight transportation. Identical legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, H.R. 1799, currently has 54 co-sponsors.

The bill authorizes states to allow the operation of trucks on the Interstate Highway System with a gross weight of 97,000 pounds. Current law limits the weight of 5-axle trucks traveling on the Interstate System to 80,000 pounds. The legislation requires that trucks operating above 80,000 pounds must add a sixth axle to compensate for the extra weight. The extra axle adds additional braking capacity, preventing an increase in stopping distances, and prevents pavements from sustaining more damage.

Read more: www.truckline.com.

Insurance expert witnesses may opine on insurance practices, insurance claims, and insurance coverage. Here, insurance experts from Anderson Kill Wood & Bender write:

Should I Stay or Should I Go?, Experts Offer Advice on Changing Carriers and/or Brokers
Every year as renewal day approaches, companies are faced with a difficult decision: do they renew with their incumbent insurance companies, or do they risk changing carriers to take advantage of lower rates, broader policy language or coverage add-ons? But the truth is, insurance carriers and brokers are helping businesses reach that decision every day of the year with their execution, their knowledge and their business practices.

With the soft market in insurance and the underlying economic unsteadiness of many carriers, there might never have been a time when so many companies are willing to question whether
it is time to change insurance carriers or brokers. Even decades-long relationships can be tested in times such as these. And what if the incumbent carrier is exiting the market or unwilling to renew for another reason? Policyholders must move cautiously and comprehensively to avoid a lapse or gap in coverage.

Read more: http://www.andersonkill.com.

Rubber expert witnesses may opine on rubber consumer products, tires, and rubber piping. Here, experts at the Rubber Manufacturers Association comment on the EPA's proposed rule on scrap tires.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a rule that would significantly harm the existing infrastructure that manages scrap tires as well as reverse two decades of environmental cleanup success, according to the Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA).

After decades of EPA-sanctioned use as a supplemental industrial fuel, EPA is proposing now to declare whole scrap tires a solid waste. The new designation would require facilities using whole tire-derived fuel (TDF) to add costly new emission controls that would not be required to burn traditional, less efficient fuels. Instead of this option, many TDF users, likely will opt to stop using TDF in favor of more costly, less efficient and higher emitting traditional fossil fuels, including coal. This will likely result in a dramatic reduction of TDF use while driving tens of millions of scrap tires back to landfills, stockpiles and illegal dumping sites.

At the same time, EPA will still allow the use of processed scrap tires to be used as fuel only if most of the steel content is removed, which would add costs to TDF use for facilities such as cement kilns, and increase the amount of energy needed and air pollutants emitted to supply TDF to these facilities. Steel content in tires does not affect overall emissions when consumed as TDF. Instead, the steel is used as a raw material in the manufacture of cement.

Read more: rma.org.

Mortgage loans expert witnesses may opine on variable rate mortgages, reverse mortgages, and conventional mortgages, as well as related topics. Here, loan expert Tammye Trevifio, Administrator, Housing and Community Facilities Programs, writes on:

Single Family Housing Guaranteed Loan Program Funding Notice

Many of you may be aware of recent legislation in which Congress provided USDA with authority to resume operating the Single Family Housing Guaranteed Loan Program (SFHGLP) at no cost to taxpayers. This was done through a combination of authority to: increase the upfront fee up to 3.5 percent of the principal obligation; charge a new annual fee of up to 0.5 percent of the outstanding principal balance; and waive payment of any fees for low and very low income borrowers up to a certain amount of loan guarantees.

Read more: mortgagenewsdaily.com.

Trucking industry expert witnesses may opine on trucking and transportation rules and regulations and federal motor vehicle safety standards, as well as related issues. Here, experts at Truckinginfo.com report:

The U.S. District Court upheld the legality of controversial parts of the Port of Los Angeles' Clean Truck Program yesterday, which could open up the port truck drivers to unionization. But observers say there will likely be an appeal.

Last year, District Judge Christina Snyder granted the American Trucking Associations a preliminary injunction against certain concessions, including a ban on owner-operators at the port. While the ATA does support the Clean Truck Program's environmental goals, the association argued that the concession plan imposes operational requirements that create a regulatory environment similar to state intrastate economic regulation and is thus against federal law.

After hearing arguments earlier this year, Snyder Thursday ruled that although federal law prohibits state and local entities from regulating the rates, routes and services of motor carriers engaged in interstate commerce, the Port of Los Angeles can mandate certain requirements on truckers under a "market participant" exception to that law. That exception is applicable, she ruled, because the port adopted the concession agreement in the Clean Truck Program "as a business necessity."

Read more: truckinginfo.com.

In Fuel Tax Continues to Provide Greatest Public Benefits, trucking experts at the American Transportation Associations write:

It is time to fix our crumbling transportation infrastructure by raising the gas tax, The Washington Post said in a recent editorial.

“By any measure, driving in the United States is cheap,” The Post said. “Driving today is substantially cheaper, in real terms, than it was about a generation ago…Americans spend just $19 on gas taxes per 1,000 miles driven -- half of what they paid in 1975.” Highways are experiencing twice the usage, twice the wear and tear, for the same amount of money; it is a system which can not sustain itself and results in poorer roads for taxpayers. An expected freight boom over the next ten years will put an even greater strain on the nation’s vital transportation system.

According to a recent report compiled by IHS Global Insight and Martin Labbe Associates, U.S. freight tonnage will increase 25 percent by 2021, with the share moved by truck increasing to 71 percent. Our highways cannot accommodate the expected increase in freight volume without substantial improvements, which are not possible with current funding levels. The most efficient way to improve the health of the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) is to increase the federal fuel tax. The buying power of the HTF is greatly diminished and without replenishment, threatens our economic prosperity and competitiveness. Revenue from the fuel tax will help alleviate critical chokepoints in the supply chain, lower fuel consumption, thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and increasing the efficiency of freight transportation.

Read more: truckline.com.

U.S. federal investigators are hearing testimonies from BP and Transocean officials in a probe into the cause of the rig explosion that led to the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The hearings, jointly conducted by the U.S. Coast Guard and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, started Monday and will continue through Friday in Houston.

Marine engineering expert Neil Cramond, BP's Gulf of Mexico marine authority official, testified that Transocean's Deepwater Horizon had dozens of maintenance issues in an audit conducted seven months before the rig blast. BP had recommended a five-day suspension of operations on the rig after the audit but later recommended that the rig be put back into service even though not all the issues had been addressed.

Read more: xinhuanet.com.

In Study Questions Use of Paid Medical Expert Witnesses in Malpractice Cases, Newswise.com writes:

Publication of the study, in the August 2010 issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology, arrives as a fierce debate over medical malpractice reform that began more than 20 years ago continues to rage in the U.S.. It follows closely on the heels of a survey of physicians, published in June in Archives of Internal Medicine, in which 91 percent of respondents said they believed that “physicians order more tests and procedures than needed to protect themselves from malpractice suits.”

On the opposite side of the issue, plantiffs’ attorneys and other advocates for patients who have been injured by medical malpractice have argued with equal force and considerable success against many measures that have been proposed, such as caps on damages awards, to rein in the costs of malpractice litigation and discourage the practice of “defensive medicine.”

Read more: newswise.com.

The Virtual Chase, an online legal research website founded by law librarian Genie Tyburski, is now powered by Justia. The re-launched Virtual Chase features a new design, as well as additional online legal research and community resources for law librarians and other legal professionals. Legal resources on The Virtual Chase are now organized in four broad categories: Community, Legal Research, Law Libraries and Other Resources.

The Legal Research section provides federal and state law and government guides, links to general legal resources such as portals and search engines, and legal practice areas research guides. This section also includes resources on finding a lawyer, electronic discovery, and locating expert witnesses. Those interested in business research will find resource links to business news, company information and public company filings. Users may also browse through the extensive resources and public records available online to researchers.

The Virtual Chase also provides guidance to researchers on how to evaluate online sources through a series of articles and checklists on information quality.

People who use Adderall when they don't need it can experience similar effects as people who use cocaine or methamphetamine, a medical expert told TMZ.Com. According to that report, "Lindsay Lohan's Adderall dependence -- the result of a medical misdiagnosis -- may have been the reason she went off the rails." The report adds "the UCLA rehab facility believe Lindsay was misdiagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder."

Lohan's father Michael hopes his daughter will overcome a possible addiction to prescription medication. "This Adderall stuff has got to be stopped. Seven out of ten kids in college are on this stuff and it's no more than methamphetamine."

Read more: nationaledger.com.

In When Do You Call an Expert for Cell Phone Data? Leonard Deutchman, Leonard Deutchman, general counsel and administrative partner of LDiscovery, discusses when to hire a telecommunications expert witness:

Cell phone service providers keep records of when telephones transmit to or receive signals from cell towers. Persons familiar with the nomenclature of those records can read them and, if they know a user's telephone number, determine whether the user's cell phone was being used within the vicinity of a cell tower on a certain day and at a certain time.

Such use of records is known as "cell phone tracking." It can be done through records downloaded from cell sites after the fact or in real time; indeed, America became acquainted with the phenomenon on June 17, 1994, during the famous "low speed chase" leading to the arrest of O.J. Simpson, where the suspect's whereabouts were ascertained in real time by following the cell sites which received signals from and transmitted them to a cell phone in a vehicle in which Simpson was traveling. Since then, it is not hyperbole to state that a week rarely passes without one of the CSI, NCIS, or other detective or police procedural television shows making reference to cell phone tracking.

Read more: http://www.law.com

In THE REAL ESTATE CLIENT: VALUATION SERVES IMPORTANT MASTERS
IN LITIGATION CASES, forensic accounting expert witness Richard M. Squar, CPA, CVA, ABV, CFF, MBA-Taxation, writes:

Before the business appraiser can focus on the specific value of the limited partnership interest, the value of the entire partnership based on the sum of the individual asset values less the partnership liabilities needs to be determined. The appraisal valuation date is critical, such date normally concurring with the date the transaction(s) regarding alleged effects upon the injured party occurred. The valuation date may be expanded to include the date of trial.

Some valuation concepts have evolved to the point of becoming standards of value. It is important that users of a valuation expert understand which standard of value the business valuation expert utilizes. Deciding the appropriate standard of value to use is where the expert often begins.