Expert Witness Blog

Alternative medicine expert witnesses may opine on herbal medicine, homeopathy, holistic medicine, and related topics. Dr. Jay Cohen writes: Did You Know?

Mainstream doctors receive almost all of their information about medications from the drug industry: 90,000 sales reps, pervasive advertising, drug company-conducted studies, package inserts and the PDR that are written by the drug industry, and drug industry-underwritten continuing medical education courses. No wonder mainstream doctors’ methods are skewed toward prescription drugs.

Alternative medicine has its own problems with accurate information. On March 30, 2002, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) reported: “Many Websites Make False Health Claims: An international sweep of health related websites has uncovered more than a thousand sites that carry misleading information or make false claims.”

Runway visual range expert witnesses may opine on low visibility, visibility problems, prevailing visibility, and related topics. Visibility may have been a contributing factor in Airblue’s flight ED 202 (Airbus A321, AP-BJB) which crashed in Margalla Hills, Islamabad on 28 July 2010 killing all 146 passengers and six crew aboard.

Human error coupled with poor visibility due to low clouds may have been the reasons for the crash. After braking off due to low clouds and low visibility, ED 202 lost visual contact of the runway and the crew may have become disoriented. Air traffic controllers reportedly lost contact with the flight crew during its attempt to land in dense fog and heavy monsoon rain. In this poor visibility the crew may have focused on 7th avenue as runway 12 and approached it for landing.

Insurance expert witnesses may advise on issues involving insurance claims, insurance adjusters, property insurance, and related issues. Adjusters, appraisers, examiners, and insurance investigation experts may have experience working for property and casualty insurance companies, for whom they handle a wide variety of claims alleging property damage, liability, or bodily injury.

Their role is to investigate the claims, negotiate settlements, and authorize payments to claimants, all the while mindful not to violate the claimant’s rights under Federal and State privacy laws. They must determine whether the customer’s insurance policy covers the loss and how much of the loss should be paid to the claimant. Although many adjusters, appraisers, examiners, and investigators have overlapping functions and may even perform the same job, the insurance industry generally assigns specific roles to each of these claims workers.

Adjusters and examiners investigate insurance claims, negotiate settlements, and authorize payments; appraisers assess the cost or value of an insured item; investigators deal with claims about which there is a question of liability and where fraud or criminal activity is suspected.

Ever contemplate why driving at twilight is difficult? In Visibility of SMV Signs during Twilight, visibility expert witness Raymond L. Lee, Jr., Ph.D.,writes:

During the darker half of civil twilight, low levels of natural illumination make slow-moving-vehicle (SMV) signs less visible. Their visibility decreases then because drivers must rely more on luminance contrast than color contrast, and a SMV sign’s fluorescent orange actually reflects less luminance than does a white surface. Furthermore, about 10%-15% of drivers do not use their headlights during twilight’s darker half, and this behavior renders ineffective the red retroreflective edge of the SMV sign. My spectroradiometric measurements show that adding a white border (reflectance = 90%) to the SMV sign would make its contrast exceed the threshold contrast (and thus make the sign detectable) during more of twilight, even for unalerted drivers who do not use their headlights. This added margin of safety for farmers, farm workers, and motorists suggests a simple, but significant, improvement to current SMV sign design.

In BUYING A FRANCHISE VERSUS STARTING AN INDEPENDENT BUSINESS, attorney and franchisees expert witness Kevin B. Murphy writes:

AVOID ILLEGAL DISGUISED FRANCHISES CALLED A LICENSE An increasing number of unscrupulous companies that don’t fly straight or play by the rules are selling licenses that are really disguised, illegal franchises. Instead of providing a comprehensive FDD Franchise Disclosure Document that meets stringent federal and state legal requirements, these companies go a different route. They present a “license agreement” or a distributor agreement” with no disclosures, no audited financial statements, no background of the principals, no investment requirement details, etc. The franchise versus license situation is one that I often consult on as a franchise expert, after clients have lost their life savings, retirement accounts, etc. investing in a license or distributorship that is an illegal disguised franchise. Don’t go down this dangerous path.

Read more:ezinearticles.com.

Electric utilities expert witnesses may opine on high voltage lines, public utilities, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and more. In 2009 The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allocated $4.5 billion to the Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability. These “Smart Grid” funds are to be used to develop a nationwide plan to modernize the electric grid, enhance security of U.S. energy infrastructure and ensure reliable electricity delivery to meet growing demand.

In 2010 The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) initiated a rulemaking (R.08.-12-009) to consider policies for California investor-owned electric utilities to develop a smarter electric grid in the state. The proceeding will consider setting policies, standards and protocols to guide the development of a smart grid system and facilitate integration of new technologies such as distributed generation, storage, demand-side technologies, and electric vehicles.

Read more: ferc.gov.

Media expert witnesses may opine on film, content theft, royalties, motion picture distribution, copyright for movies, and more. In Types of Content Theft, the Motion Picture Association of America writes:

OPTICAL DISC THEFT Optical disc theft – also known as “bootlegging” – is the illegal manufacturing, sale and/or distribution of movies in hard copy or disc format. Bootleggers sometimes have elaborate operations where they replicate DVDs and then distribute them to vendors who sell them illegally on the streets. There is strong evidence that many of these operations are run by the same organized crime networks that traffic in drugs and human beings. Others may have small operations in their homes and even in their places of work. These illegal goods can be sold anywhere: on websites, online auction sites, via e-mail, by street vendors and in flea markets around the world.

Read more: mpaa.org.Types of Content Theft

Utilities expert witness John P. Nelson writes “There are many hazards associated with the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity.”

The following is a list of a few of those hazards:

• Contact with energized parts • Electrical arc flashes • Auto accidents involving power poles • Drowning in water associated with hydroelectric plants.