Expert Witness Blog

Process service expert witnesses may opine on acceptance of service, affidavit of service, jurats, judicial summons, and more. The National Association of Professional Process Servers reports on their website that New York process servers were granted a partial restraining order on a new law:

The New York State Professional Process Servers Association (NYSPPSA) was granted a partial restraining order on March 21 to allow the Association and the City of New York to continue negotiations over new regulations for professional process servers within the city limits.

The association and its members remain hopeful that differences can be resolved amicably and to the satisfaction of all parties. Prior to the court filing, NYSPPSA and the City of New York had been negotiating in good faith and were making progress ahead of a March 21 deadline. NYSPPSA chose court action only after a request to extend that deadline was denied. In the event the matter cannot be resolved satisfactorily, further court proceedings were set for April 27.

Trucking expert witnesses may write reports and testify on federal motor carrier safety regulations, truck maintenance, trucking and transportation rules, and related topics. Transport Topics reports that American Trucking Associations and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association have together written to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asking the agency to begin researching how standards for crashworthiness for heavy trucks could benefit professional truck drivers.

“NHTSA has continuously developed crashworthiness standards for automobiles and light trucks, but to date has generally not applied crashworthiness standards to commercial trucks,” the two groups wrote to NHTSA chief David Strickland this week.

Read more: ttnews.com.

Commercial design expert witnesses may write reports and testify on interior designs, space planning, green retrofits, and more. Here, BuildingDesign+Construction.com writes:

The U.S. Department of Energy announced in May the release of the first in a new series of Advanced Energy Design Guides (AEDGs) to aid architects and engineers in the design of highly energy-efficient office buildings. The 50% AEDG series will provide a practical approach to commercial buildings designed to achieve 50% energy savings compared to the commercial building energy code used in many areas of the country. This 50% AEDG for Small and Medium Office Buildings is the first in a series of four to be released in the coming months. These commercial building guides support President Obama’s goal to reduce energy use in commercial buildings 20% by 2020 and will help drive demand for energy-saving products made in the United States.

Sales forecasting expert witnesses may testify on sales promotions, retail sales, sales revenues and more. Referenceforbusiness.com describes QUALITATIVE FORECASTING METHODS.

Qualitative forecasting techniques generally employ the judgment of experts in the appropriate field to generate forecasts. A key advantage of these procedures is that they can be applied in situations where historical data are simply not available. Moreover, even when historical data are available, significant changes in environmental conditions affecting the relevant time series may make the use of past data irrelevant and questionable in forecasting future values of the time series.

Read more: Forecasting http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/encyclopedia/Fa-For/Forecasting.html#ixzz1OXPlUsZp

Health care administration expert witnesses may opine on medical record administrators, health information managers, health services managers, and more. On its website, the American Health Information Management Association offers this information on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) which fast tracked the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs).

Ensuring patient information is protected and secure from any intrusion is a priority in health care. It is crucial for organizations to understand and implement the privacy and security controls needed to access health information while ensuring patient privacy. According to Healthcare IT, healthcare experts have identified the top seven trends in health information privacy for 2011.

1. Health information exchanges, many of which will be launched by inexperienced and understaffed organization

Interior design expert witnesses may opine on residential designs, furnishings, and commercial designs. BuildingDesign+Construction.com writes:

Hospitals are noisier than ever. Worldwide, sound levels inside hospitals average 72 decibels during the day and 60 decibels at night, which far exceeds the standard of 40 decibels or less, set by the World Health Organization. Studies find that the clamor of modern medicine can harm both patients and staff. Unwanted sound wrecks sleep, raises stress levels, induces medical mistakes, and contributes to alarm fatigue, which occurs when monitors shriek so often they are ignored or turned off, causing safety issues.

In response, hospitals throughout Illinois and the U.S. are launching “quiet campaigns” that include eliminating intercom paging, replacing metal trash cans, installing sound-absorbing flooring and paneling, and dimming lights at night to remind staff to keep their voices down.

Medical records expert witnesses may write reports and opine on rehabilitation centers, medical record review, physician credentialing, and related topics. Here, Federal News Daily reports Veterans Administration medical records show a decrease in hospital-acquired infections.

Over the past few years, Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities have been drawn into the spotlight because of a small, but widely reported, number of medical slip-ups – such as improperly processed endoscopy equipment at one facility. But a new article in the New England Journal of Medicine spotlights VA for something far more positive – infection-control practices that marked a dramatic improvement in preventing hospital-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections.

The VA initiative, now in its fourth year, reduced MRSA infections by more than 60 percent in VA intensive-care units across the nation, the article states. MRSA infections are a serious global health care issue and are difficult to treat because the bacteria are often resistant to many antibiotics.

Commercial design expert witnesses may write reports and testify on interior designs, space planning, green retrofits, and more. Here, BuildingDesign+Construction.com writes:

The City of Seattle sent letters to more than 800 large commercial property owners and managers today informing them about a new citywide program designed to help owners and managers assess and improve building energy efficiency and spur the market for building energy retrofits.

“Seattle’s buildings provide one of the greatest opportunities to generate energy savings and boost economic development for the city. This new program will help building owners take a key step toward increasing building energy efficiency, which, in turn, helps lower operating costs, makes buildings more competitive and creates good local jobs,” said Department of Planning and Development Director Diane Sugimura.

Reinsurance expert witnesses may opine on reinsurance contracts, reinsurers, and reinsurance policies. Legaldictionary.com defines reinsurance:

A reinsurance contract is a contract of indemnity, meaning that it becomes effective only when the insurance company has made a payment to the original policyholder. Reinsurance provides a way for the insurance company to protect itself from financial disaster and ruin by passing on the risk to other companies. Reinsurance redistributes or diversifies the risk or threat associated with the business of issuing policies by allowing the reinsured to show more assets by reducing its reserve requirements. The reinsurance industry became more popular during the late 1990s and early 2000s because natural disasters and mass tort litigation resulted in large payouts by insurance companies. Because of the large size of the payments, some insurance companies became insolvent.

Read more: legaldictionary.com.