Expert Witness Blog

Media expert witnesses may opine on mass media, music, television, and social media. In No “R” in Social Media Tom Morse, Media Communications Association Central Carolina Chapter President writes:

Things can get murky when it comes to “soft metrics,” such as measuring views on YouTube, comments on blogs, brand mentions, or tweets. Activity that happens beyond an organization’s website is more difficult to quantify. An agreement on how these will be evaluated is important. Construct strategies that help drive traffic into an environment where you have more sophisticated capabilities to engage and convert online actions into sales. For example, a video posted to YouTube can include a unique URL providing content that supplements the video. Hits to the web page can the tracked and offers for items such as white papers can be converted to sales leads.

Read more: http://www.mca-i.org/

Insurance claims expert witnesses may opine on insurance policy interpretation, insurance fraud, and related topics. In 8 Great Ways to Get Busted for Auto Insurance Fraud, Insurance.com writes:

8. Buy insurance for a loss you already had.

This is one of the all-time classics. You’ve been meaning to get comprehensive coverage for awhile now, but never got around to it. Unfortunately, a tree branch just fell on your car, breaking the windshield and severely denting the hood. So, you call your auto insurance company and add comprehensive coverage, then file a claim a few days later. The problem? During the investigation, the SIU finds out you started calling body shops to get estimates before you had comprehensive coverage. Not a good situation for you.

Marketing strategy expert witnesses may write reports and opine on branding, market studies, market analysis, and related topics. Here, WOMMA, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association describes common types of word of mouth marketing.

This is not a complete list — we’re publishing it as a means to begin a dialog toward standardization, and we welcome your comments. (Not everyone agrees that each of these should be part of word of mouth marketing, and many marketers use different terms to describe them.)

Buzz Marketing: Using high-profile entertainment or news to get people to talk about your brand.

Mass media expert witnesses may opine on mass media, music, television, and social media. In No “R” in Social Media, Tom Morse, Media Communications Association Central Carolina Chapter President writes:

Many organizations use applications such as Google Analytics or SAS® Customer Intelligence to monitor web traffic and gain valuable business insights. For organizations without such capabilities, there are still many ways to track and measure the business value of social media. Regardless of the channel, a strong call to action can drive traffic back to where engagement can be turned into leads and sales. In some cases it might be a unique 800 number, hotlink, promotional code, or email address that delivers prospects to where tracking and conversions can be done – a call center or company website. These simple techniques, some would call them old school, have long proven effective. Regardless of whether the engagement begins on a syndicated blog, Facebook, or Twitter, prospects can be engaged in a way that can provide meaningful information.

Read more: http://www.mca-i.org/

In Construction Hazards – Early Identification and Risk Control, electrical expert witness Gregory W. Miller, P.E., B.S.E.E, writes:

1. Identifying the Hazards – This is the first step. It includes walking the project site and meeting with the project and design engineers to get a handle on the scope and activities associated with the project. A well-developed HIP will provide the safety professional with the ability to target his questions and focus his initial investigation into the high-rate hazards. Typical questions covered by the HIP include:

What existing hazards exist at or near the site? Power lines? Pipelines? Nearby population & traffic?

In Standard for Technical Rescue, rescue expert witness Gerald M. Dworkin, Lifesaving Resources Inc., writes:

If lifeguards are trained in CPR and AED for the Professional Rescuer, then it would be negligent not to provide them with the equipment used within those training programs, namely AEDs and Bag-Valve-Mask Resuscitators, among other things. Drowning is a hypoxic event. The only effective way to treat hypoxia in a victim of respiratory and/or cardiac distress or arrest while waiting for the arrival of EMS personnel is to provide positive pressure ventilation (PPV) using a personal resuscitation mask or an appropriately sized bag-valve-mask (BVM) resuscitator along with supplemental oxygen administration. While the use of a personal resuscitation mask provides for the administration of 16 percent oxygen from atmospheric air, the use of a bag-valve-mask will provide the patient with 21 percent oxygen from atmospheric air. And, by attaching an oxygen tank and regulator flowing oxygen at 15 liters per minute, the rescuer will then be providing the patient with 100 percent oxygen.

Read more: www.lifesaving.com.

In The I.S.O. Pollution Exclusion: How Far Does It Go?, insurance expert witness Dale C. Crawford writes:

Anyone involved in insurance dispute resolution will sooner or later come across an issue involving pollution exclusions. Most carriers-even those operating on a non-admitted basis-use the Insurance Services Office standard form. Typically, the conflict will be whether a cause of loss falls within the exclusionary language.

When these exclusions first evolved in the early 1970s, those active in the industry at the time will recall the two significant features addressed. The first was that damage from pollution was excluded unless it was sudden and accidental; second, the focus was on costs to remediate air, land or water damaged by the pollutants. Thus the intentional polluter who contaminated large land areas or streams over many years or habitually released noxious airborne chemicals would not have coverage for the costs of cleanup. Insurers soon found that the requirement for sudden and accidental was often given wide latitude in favor of coverage. The different terms adopted across the industry were gradually tightened and narrowed into more standard forms, ultimately resulting in a standard ISO form in 1985 with an absolute exclusion.