Expert Witness Blog

A Symmes Township, OH, man was sentenced Monday to 180 days in jail for street racing and aggravated vehicular homicide in a Clermont County crash that took the life of a friend riding in his hot-rod car. Purcell’s car was going 70 to 90 mph at the time of the fatal wreck, according to an accident reconstruction expert witness.

Dustin Purcell, 21, had faced up to five years in prison when sentenced by Judge Victor M. Haddad of Common Pleas Court. The prosecution recommended that he be put on probation for five years with the understanding he would speak to kids about the risks of reckless driving. The souped-up 1992 Honda Civic LX driven by Purcell ran off the right side of the narrow, two-lane road, hit a ditch and flipped over three times about 12:22 a.m.

For more, see cincinnati.com.

All lawsuits filed in federal court against Pfizer over alleged side effects of Chantix, their popular smoking cessation treatment, have been centralized for pretrial litigation before U.S. District Judge Inge Prytz Johnson in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama as part of a multidistrict litigation (MDL). The cases involve similar allegations that Pfizer failed to adequately research their medication or warn about the risk of suicide from Chantix or other psychological side effects.

Experts, including neuropsychology expert witnesses, must be designated by April 2011 and May 2011, for the Plaintiffs and Defendants respectively, with expert depositions set to begin in July 2011 and conclude by October 3, 2011. Motions practice on general causation and liability will then occur through the end of 2011, with case specific expert discovery not permitted to begin until after the Court decides the issues that are generally applicable to cases in the litigation.

For more, see aboutlawsuits.com.

In July 2008, plaintiff Ted Slaughter filed a medical malpractice lawsuit claiming he was not promptly treated by the Beaumont Bone & Joint Institute after cutting his left hand in a circular saw. Slaughter alleges the delay led to the amputation of his right index finger. On March 4, justices seated on the Texas Ninth District Court of Appeals issued a memorandum opinion that partially reversed the lower courts ruling which kept several Beaumont Bone & Joint employees trapped in the ongoing litigation.

The clinic, in its appellate brief, argued that the "trial court abused its discretion in failing to dismiss (Slaughter's) claims of direct negligence ... when these claims were not (thoroughly) discussed in any expert report." Conversely, Slaughter argued the appellate court lacks jurisdiction over the matter and claimed the medical malpractice expert witness report does not have to conform to Texas civil law since "no new claims were made in the amended petition."

For more, see Southeast Texas Recordhttp://www.setexasrecord.com/.

At least 51 witnesses may be called upon by the Park District of La Grange, IL, to provide testimony in an upcoming Cook County Circuit Court hearing in support of its petition to sell 2.82 acres of Gordon Park to developer Atlantic Realty Partners. Experts named in the document include real estate valuation expert witness Patricia L. McGarr and real estate expert witness Brian L. Paupore, both of Integra Realty Resources. Witnesses recognized by the court as experts may include opinions in their testimony where appropriate, whereas other witnesses may only speak to the factual nature of any evidence presented.

The Park District reserved the right to add additional witnesses at a later date. Judge Susan Fox Gillis has not yet set a date for the presentation of testimony, but the next status hearing is scheduled for Feb. 19.

For more, see http://everythinglagrange.typepad.com.

The trial of Stanley Cole, who is accused of murdering his girlfriend, Jackson State University student Latasha Norman, is set to begin February 8 in the Circuit Court of Hinds County, Mississippi. The evidence against Stanley Cole at this point includes: (a) he confessed to murdering Natasha Norman; (b) he confessed to placing her in the trunk of his car; and (c) he went out on a date with another woman while Latasha Norman’s corpse was in his trunk. There is DNA evidence that places Latasha Norman’s blood in Stanley Cole’s trunk. Circuit Judge Swan Yerger postponed Cole's murder trial to make sure pathology expert witness Dr. Steven Hayne will be available to testify.

Source: criminaldefenseblog.net.

Michael Dean and Lucinda Stone, owners of Function Media, claim Google products infringe their '025 and '059 patents. The patents involve taking raw data and automatically formatting customized advertisements to be published on Web sites. Function Media is seeking $600 million in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, which is 12 percent of royalties from Googles' AdSense for Content program. Function Media claims that it is their technology Google is using to create and publish customized advertisement on sites.

Software development expert witness Mark Lanning testified that he did not believe Google is guilty of infringement while Ms. Stone said she discovered similarities in Function Media and Google's programs while using Google's AdSense to publish ads on her own Web site in 2004. According to Google's AdSense for content Web site, the free program allows Web site publishers to display relevant Google ads on their content pages and earn money from valid clicks or impressions. Google reportedly generated more $5 billion in revenue from the program.

For more, see marshallnewsmessenger.com.

Information technology expert witness Mark Lanning testified Monday for Google in the case of Function Media versus Google. Michael Dean and Lucinda Stone, owners of Function Media, claim the Google products infringe their '025 and '059 patents. The patents involve taking raw data and automatically formatting customized advertisements to be published on Web sites.

During his testimony in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Lanning said he did not believe Google is guilty of infringement for a few reasons:

Google does not permit advertisers to input information to create an electronic advertisement customized to selected "Internet media venue's presentation rules." Presentation rules refer to the color, layout and content of a site.

Google does not publish advertisements to Internet media venues. It sends it directly to users.

Google does not allow advertisers to input information to selected Internet media venues and does not display advertisements on each selected Internet media venue.

For more, see marshallnewsmessenger.com.

Bear Stearns former lawyer Raymond Aronson is to testify as a securities expert witness against Bear Stearns. The bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods is suing Bear over allegedly overpriced bonds Bear hedge funds sold nearly three years ago. Keefe hired Aronson, who is currently with Sutter Securities Group, Inc., to testify as an expert witness on legal and industry practices related to prime brokerage and clearing transactions in the pending arbitration case. Aronson worked 29 years for Bears Stearns until 2004.

For more, see www.businessinsider.com.

The obvious signs of Neil Beagley's failing health gave his parents ample warning that the teenager needed immediate medical treatment, a doctor testified Friday. Pediatric urology expert witness Dr. Edward Guillery, who specializes in childhood kidney disease, said that a record of the boy's food consumption clearly signaled his decline. "The fact that there was (a record) is what really caught my attention," Guillery said. Food journals "usually reflect a significant concern that something is wrong."

The boy's parents, Jeffrey and Marci Beagley, are charged with criminally negligent homicide for failing to provide medical care for Neil, who died in June 2008. The family belong to Followers of Christ, an Oregon City church that generally relies on faith-healing rather than doctors and medicine.

For more, see oregonlive.com.

Providence, RI, Senior U.S. District Judge Ronald R. Lagueux on Wednesday gave his oral judgment in favor of Dunkin' Donuts defendants and adverse to Dunkin’ Donuts franchisee Irwin Barkan. Dismissing the jury on the seventh day of trial, he also granted Dunkin defendants’ oral motion to preclude the testimony of Barkan’s franchise valuation expert witness, Frank Torchio. Barkan has been fighting in court against the franchisor for five years after losing his six stores and his store development agreements to open new franchises. He claimed that Dunkin’ intentionally blocked his efforts to refinance his stores through CIT, even though Dunkin’ had agreed to the financial restructuring of his company.

Barkan asserts that Dunkin’s interference of the refinancing process forced him into bankruptcy with his stores, and that it was an intentional act by Dunkin’ to eliminate him from the system.The expert witness was to give evidence that Barkan would have made $13 million if he had received the refinancing and continued to open his additional stores. In recent years, Dunkin’ Brands has been accused of hardball tactics in terminating smaller franchisees, under the guise that they have breached their contracts. Franchise operators have alleged that they then sell the stores to large multi-unit operators of Dunkin’s choosing.

For more, see bluemaumau.org.

Wireless communications expert witness and FBI Special Agent William Shute recently worked on the case of Bonnie Sweeten, a Bucks County mother who faked a carjacking-kidnapping in May and two days later was taken into custody at Disney World with her nine-year-old daughter.

Sweeten had told emergency dispatchers that she and her daughter were snatched in the middle of the day Tuesday by two men who rear-ended her SUV in suburban Philadelphia. He said Philadelphia police contacted the expert witness within five minutes after they had received the 911 call from Sweeten reporting she and her daughter had been carjacked. Using his expertise on cell towers, "we knew within an hour that she was lying" because the call bounced off a cell tower some 16 miles away from where she said she was, said Shute.

For more, see phillyburbs.com.

Blue Castle Holdings Inc., owner of the Blue Castle Project, presented testimony by expert witnesses at the hearing conducted by the State Water Engineer on the benefits and minimal impacts to Green River Basin of the use of 53,600 acre feet of water for the proposed nuclear power project in Utah. The hearing is one of the last steps for gaining the needed state approval to divert and use the water for the project.

Water engineering expert witness and former Utah State Water Engineer Jerry Olds provided data and testimony to demonstrate sufficient unappropriated water exists in the Green River to use at the proposed power plant. Olds stated, "This is a very favorable location for the use of this water; it will not impair other users' water rights."

For more, see earthtimes.org.

The date of the trial has yet to be determined in the case of Richard Poplawski, 23, accused of fatally shooting three Pittsburg police officers. Allegheny County Judge Jeffrey Manning decided Wednesday that jurors should come from another county, citing "pervasive, prejudicial pretrial publicity" surrounding the case.

Manning said he'll schedule a trial date at a March 22 pretrial conference and wants Poplawski's public defender, Lisa Middleman, to decide whether she'll pursue an insanity defense by that time. Middleman told the judge that forensic psychology expert witnesses need more time to review evidence and that she would "absolutely be unprepared in March to give notice" of an insanity defense. "That's not enough time for a responsible expert to review all the materials and render an opinion," she said. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court must select the county from which jurors will be bused to Pittsburgh for the trial.

For more, see ldnews.com.

A public hearing was held last week on Homestake Mining Company's discharge permit with modification at the Cibola County, NM, Complex. The Homestake reclamation project is a Superfund Site cleanup site which involves a 25-million ton uranium waste pile. Homestake Project Manager Al Cox says he has been waiting for re-approval of the existing permit for several years and is now requesting a third pond, EP3, to speed up the process of reclamation. “We've lost time [without the third pond],” said George Hoffman, a hydrology expert witness for HMC. “We've been unable to maximize the process being used for cleanup.”

Expert witness Chris Shuey of the Southwest Research Center questioned the success of the current Homestake Mining Company’s reclamation project’s success.

For more, see cibolabeacon.com.

Seven former staffers from the House Democratic caucus have pleaded guilty in Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett's three-year government corruption investigation that has become known as Bonusgate. Former State Rep. Michael Veon is scheduled to go on trial for similar charges on January 19th. The defendants conspired "to pay bonuses of legislative funds -- taxpayer money -- to legislative employees for political campaign work," prosecutor James Reeder told Dauphin County Common Pleas Judge Richard Lewis.

The guilty pleas come from staffers who held critical posts, including Veon's former chief of staff, Rep. Bill DeWeese's former chief of staff, and the former director of the Democratic Legislative Research Office. Computer forensics expert witness Gregory Kelley gave crucial testimony regarding e-mail message evidence in the case.

Pittsburgh defense attorney Joel Sansone argued to exclude the messages because they were obtained from state Rep. Bill DeWeese, who they claim was a co-conspirator and had the opportunity to exclude messages that might implicate himself or clear others. He also would have had the opportunity to alter messages.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com.

Cell phones previously linked to two of the three suspects on trial for the January 2009 murder of a Montgomery Township, PA, man were used in the vicinity of the slaying and at the approximate time of the killing, according to an FBI agent. Citing cell phone records reflecting the cell towers that carried the calls, communications expert witness and FBI Special Agent William Shute Friday testified that these phones were used in the Philadelphia area where the defendants lived up until about 4 a.m. on Jan. 9. Calls made from these phones then were recorded using two cell towers nearest to the residence of 58-year-old Robert Chae of Gwynmont Drive, the expert witness testified.

In earlier testimony, the cell phone numbers tracked by Shute in his report were for phones reportedly used by Joseph Page, 23, and Amatadi Latham, 26. Page, Latham and Pitts are on trial on second- and third-degree murder charges stemming from Robert Chae's suffocation death and the subsequent robbery of his home shortly after 5 a.m. on Jan. 9, 2009.

For more, see phillyburbs.com.

A federal judge on Thursday set closing arguments for Feb. 11 in the state’s lawsuit involving the poultry industry’s alleged role in polluting the Illinois River watershed. U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell, who is presiding over the trial, which began Sept. 24 in Tulsa, gave the parties until Feb. 5 to submit proposed written findings to the court. The state’s lawsuit against the poultry industry, filed in 2005, alleges that poultry companies are legally responsible for the handling and disposal of poultry waste — also known as litter — that the state says has damaged portions of the Illinois River watershed.

Attorneys representing the poultry industry rested their case Wednesday, but trial testimony is not quite over. On Thursday, Frizzell granted the state’s request to allow rebuttal testimony by a pair of pollution expert witnesses. The court scheduled that to take place Jan. 25-26.

Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com.

Two McGill University faculty members may be called to testify as expert witnesses in a landmark California Supreme Court case that will determine whether California’s current prohibition on equal marriage is unconstitutional. The case, which began last Monday, will challenge Proposition 8, the California Marriage Protection Act. The legislation reinstated a ban on equal marriage in the state when it was approved by 52.3 per cent of California voters in November 2008.

A plaintiff’s witness list includes marriage expert witness Katherine Young, a professor in the McGill Faculty of Religious Studies, who “purports to be knowledgeable in comparative religion and on what universally constitutes marriage.” Paul Nathanson, a researcher in the same faculty, is also included on the list and is described as someone who “purports to be knowledgeable about religious attitudes toward Proposition 8.”

For more, see mcgilldaily.com.

Licking County, OH, Common Pleas Judge Thomas M. Marcelain has ordered the Career and Technology Education Centers of Licking County (C-TEC) to pay $3.8 million in damages for uncompensated work to Claggett & Sons Inc., the General Trades Contractor on a $30 million school addition and renovation. In the Judge’s ruling both sides were ordered back into court to address punitive damages and attorney fees, costs that could push the cash-strapped center’s bill even higher. Claggett attorneys also intend to seek interest for the company's damages accrued since 2006.

The 27-page opinion includes numerous examples of where architect Kimball and Associates, of Pittsburgh, made major mistakes, did not act in good faith and “misled them,” including keeping “facts” from C-TEC’s construction manager, a maintenance director with no construction experience.

"The architect took advantage of the lack of knowledge of C-TEC in construction methods," Marcelain wrote as he described problems such as ventilation pipes designed to go through a steel beam near the roof. The judge wrote that C-TEC's witnesses, especially its architects, were not credible and that Claggett demonstrated construction delays were not its fault. He also noted board members were not aware the project was 90 percent complete and the school largely occupied when they voted to terminate Claggett.

Claggett’s legal team was supported by Robson Forensic, Inc. including testimony from Mark E. Williams, AIA, NCARB an architect expert witness. Marcelain’s judgment entry may be downloaded from: http://www.newarkadvocate.com/assets/pdf/BF1490241224.PDF

For more, see newarkadvocate.com.

Bank of America Corp. received a blow from U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff in their civil trial with the SEC, as Rakoff granted a request from the SEC to forbid finance expert witnesses for Bank of America to use media reports to support their claims that shareholders were aware of the huge bonuses Merrill Lynch & Co. were offering their top executives.

The trial stems from the same judge who threw out a $33 million settlement between the SEC and Bank of America last year, clearing the way for the civil trial. In the case of two of the witnesses for Bank of America, they were going to use media reports as their primary evidence for asserting shareholders had knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the bonuses offered by Merrill Lynch.

For more, see americanbankingnews.com.