Articles Posted in Uncategorized

1. Brooks, et al. v. Ripley, Union, Lewis, Huntington School District, et al. – United States District Court – Southern District of Ohio – November 10th, 2015 – In this alleged racial discrimination case at a school, the defendants’ filed a motion to exclude the expert witness testimony of Dr. Edward Dragan, an education & schools expert witness based on unreliability and relevancy.  The court denied the motion to exclude on all counts except that Dr. Dragan could not opine that the defendants were “deliberately indifferent” or “severely indifferent” to plaintiff’s racial harassment.
2. Roberts v. General Motors LLC – United States District Court – Eastern District of Missouri – November 10th, 2015 – This is a motor vehicle design defect case.  Both parties have hired expert witnesses and both have filed motions to exclude the testimony of those witnesses.  The defendant, General Motors, has filed a motion to exclude the testimony of Larry Sicher (mechanical engineering expert witness) and Joseph Burton, M.D (biomechanics expert witness).  The plaintiff has filed a motion to exclude the testimony of Jeya Padmanaban (statistics expert witness).  The court denied the motion to exclude the expert witness testimony of Mr. Sicher and Dr. Burton and granted the motion to exclude the expert witness testimony of Ms. Padmanaban.
3. Alsip v. Wal-Mart Stores East, LP et al – United Sates District Court – Southern District of Alabama – November 12th, 2015 – This case involves a slip & fall out side of a Walmart.  The plaintiff hired Russell Kendzior (slip, trip & fall expert witness) to opine on the traction of the surface.  The defendant filed a motion to exclude this testimony based on reliability and relevancy. The court granted the motion to exclude.

Plaintiff was charged with 7 counts of sexual conduct with a minor.  He appealed the conviction on numerous grounds, one being the admittance of child sexual abuse expert testimony.  The court confirmed the opinion of the trial court.

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Defendant was convicted of first degree sexual abuse and subsequently appealed his conviction on two grounds, one on the court’s exclusion of his expert witness.  The court confirmed the lower court opinion.

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Plaintiff’s hired economics expert to opine on damages.  Defendants filed a motion to exclude on reliability factors.  The court denied the motion.

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Accident investigation expert witnesses may provide reports concerning crash investigations, distracted drivers, and skid mark analysis. Statistics in the US suggest that distraction contributes to 16% of all fatal crashes. AAA tells us that drivers spend more than half their time focused on things other than driving, e.g. eating, attending to children, and music devices, etc. At Malman Law.com, personal injury lawyers write on how to prove texting and driving, including:

Even if a cautious cell phone user deletes their text messages, law enforcement officials can contact the user’s mobile service provider and view the timestamps for any text messages sent or received. Many auto accident lawyers have been able to use cell phone records to prove that a driver was using their phone during an accident.

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

Transportation safety expert witnesses may provide reports regarding transportation brokering, bus & truck safety, highways, transportation engineering, and transportation infrastructure. On its website, the American Transportation Associations describes how technology is changing the trucking business:

The analysis and utilization of data is changing the driver, vehicle and operational landscape for those fleets that have discovered how to harness it. Transportation leaders are saving time and are able to streamline their operations using integrated technologies that are leading to safer, productive and more efficient operations. Fleet executives and managers need faster, more convenient access to reliable information to find efficiencies in order to survive or gain a competitive advantage.

Information on the ATA Executive Summit may be found at here.

Trucking expert witnesses may opine on motor carrier fleet management, interstate motor carrier operations, federal motor carrier safety regulations, and related topics. Recently, the Board of Directors of American Trucking Associations called on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to make changes to its safety-monitoring system Compliance Safety Accountability.

“From the outset, ATA has supported FMCSA’s efforts to improve its enforcement capabilities through CSA,” ATA President and CEO Bill Graves said. “Through CSA’s development and implementation the agency had been responsive to suggestions and made an effort to improve the program as needed. However, recently our members have become concerned that the agency has become increasingly unresponsive, even in the face of data and logic.”

Read more: trucking.org.

Forensic pathology expert witness Larry Blum testified at a Jefferson City, MO, hearing for Ryan Ferguson who was convicted in the 2001 death of Kent Heitholt. Blum is disputing the cause of injuries that was described in the trial and whether Heitholt was killed during a robbery.

EXPERT WITNESS PROFILER, LLC (“EWP”) www.ExpertWitnessProfiler.com, the expert witness research company, announced the official launch of its service to provide comprehensive background profiles on experts and consultants. The Expert Witness Profile report allows attorneys, paralegals, law librarians, legal investigators, insurance carriers, and other legal professionals to properly vet an expert they may retain, or to develop cross examination or exclusionary material for the opponent’s expert.

The Profile report details the expert’s litigation history, disciplinary history, prior expert witness testimony, expert challenges, licensing history, professional and educational background, and much more. The Profile includes information on how to access available depositions, motions, briefs, articles, and other documents referencing that expert. Each report involves a minimum of 20 hours of research by attorneys and professional legal researchers who leverage databases that are not readily available to the public. The primary goal of the Expert Witness Profile is to save legal professionals time and money, and to deliver a deeper, broader and timelier result than if the legal professional attempted to acquire information about an expert on their own.

EWP was founded by Jim Robinson, Esq., and expert witness/legal research executive Myles Levin. Mr. Robinson and Mr. Levin are two of the co-authors of Finding and Researching Experts and Their Testimony, the definitive white paper on researching experts as well as co-authors of the first chapter of the American Bar Association’s recent publication, Litigators on Experts: Strategies for Managing Expert Witnesses from Retention through Trial. Combined, they have over 40 years experience in researching expert witnesses through the companies they founded, JurisPro Expert Witness Directory and the Daubert Tracker, respectively. EWP’s research team is comprised of over 25 legal professionals specially trained to use advanced research tools and techniques to locate difficult to find information about expert witnesses.

Mortgage fraud expert witnesses may opine on residential mortgages, mortgage fraud, and wholesale mortgages, among other topics. The Denver Post writes that in today’s mortgage and loan industry, multiple assignments of the same loan are common and frequently not recorded. Because an assignment of a promissory note and deed of trust is not required to be recorded, a borrower has no way of knowing who holds them.

In Colorado, Citywide Banks tried to foreclose on a number of home buyers after entities affiliated with Lafayette-based Jaguar Group LLC failed to forward funds to the bank, which held the promissory notes on the properties. Similar cases are occurring throughout the state and country, said attorney Alan Sweetbaum. The cases that have garnered attention in Colorado all tie back to Jaguar. A state grand jury in March indicted five Jaguar officials, accusing them of defrauding lenders in a $3.4 million Ponzi scheme.

Read more: denverpost.com.