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In Fuel Tax Continues to Provide Greatest Public Benefits, trucking experts at the American Transportation Associations write:

It is time to fix our crumbling transportation infrastructure by raising the gas tax, The Washington Post said in a recent editorial.

“By any measure, driving in the United States is cheap,” The Post said. “Driving today is substantially cheaper, in real terms, than it was about a generation ago…Americans spend just $19 on gas taxes per 1,000 miles driven — half of what they paid in 1975.” Highways are experiencing twice the usage, twice the wear and tear, for the same amount of money; it is a system which can not sustain itself and results in poorer roads for taxpayers. An expected freight boom over the next ten years will put an even greater strain on the nation’s vital transportation system.

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U.S. federal investigators are hearing testimonies from BP and Transocean officials in a probe into the cause of the rig explosion that led to the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The hearings, jointly conducted by the U.S. Coast Guard and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, started Monday and will continue through Friday in Houston.

Marine engineering expert Neil Cramond, BP’s Gulf of Mexico marine authority official, testified that Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon had dozens of maintenance issues in an audit conducted seven months before the rig blast. BP had recommended a five-day suspension of operations on the rig after the audit but later recommended that the rig be put back into service even though not all the issues had been addressed.

Read more: xinhuanet.com.

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In Study Questions Use of Paid Medical Expert Witnesses in Malpractice Cases, Newswise.com writes:

Publication of the study, in the August 2010 issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology, arrives as a fierce debate over medical malpractice reform that began more than 20 years ago continues to rage in the U.S.. It follows closely on the heels of a survey of physicians, published in June in Archives of Internal Medicine, in which 91 percent of respondents said they believed that “physicians order more tests and procedures than needed to protect themselves from malpractice suits.”

On the opposite side of the issue, plantiffs’ attorneys and other advocates for patients who have been injured by medical malpractice have argued with equal force and considerable success against many measures that have been proposed, such as caps on damages awards, to rein in the costs of malpractice litigation and discourage the practice of “defensive medicine.”

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The Virtual Chase, an online legal research website founded by law librarian Genie Tyburski, is now powered by Justia. The re-launched Virtual Chase features a new design, as well as additional online legal research and community resources for law librarians and other legal professionals. Legal resources on The Virtual Chase are now organized in four broad categories: Community, Legal Research, Law Libraries and Other Resources.

The Legal Research section provides federal and state law and government guides, links to general legal resources such as portals and search engines, and legal practice areas research guides. This section also includes resources on finding a lawyer, electronic discovery, and locating expert witnesses. Those interested in business research will find resource links to business news, company information and public company filings. Users may also browse through the extensive resources and public records available online to researchers.

The Virtual Chase also provides guidance to researchers on how to evaluate online sources through a series of articles and checklists on information quality.

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People who use Adderall when they don’t need it can experience similar effects as people who use cocaine or methamphetamine, a medical expert told TMZ.Com. According to that report, “Lindsay Lohan’s Adderall dependence — the result of a medical misdiagnosis — may have been the reason she went off the rails.” The report adds “the UCLA rehab facility believe Lindsay was misdiagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.”

Lohan’s father Michael hopes his daughter will overcome a possible addiction to prescription medication. “This Adderall stuff has got to be stopped. Seven out of ten kids in college are on this stuff and it’s no more than methamphetamine.”

Read more: nationaledger.com.

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In When Do You Call an Expert for Cell Phone Data? Leonard Deutchman, Leonard Deutchman, general counsel and administrative partner of LDiscovery, discusses when to hire a telecommunications expert witness:

Cell phone service providers keep records of when telephones transmit to or receive signals from cell towers. Persons familiar with the nomenclature of those records can read them and, if they know a user’s telephone number, determine whether the user’s cell phone was being used within the vicinity of a cell tower on a certain day and at a certain time.

Such use of records is known as “cell phone tracking.” It can be done through records downloaded from cell sites after the fact or in real time; indeed, America became acquainted with the phenomenon on June 17, 1994, during the famous “low speed chase” leading to the arrest of O.J. Simpson, where the suspect’s whereabouts were ascertained in real time by following the cell sites which received signals from and transmitted them to a cell phone in a vehicle in which Simpson was traveling. Since then, it is not hyperbole to state that a week rarely passes without one of the CSI, NCIS, or other detective or police procedural television shows making reference to cell phone tracking.

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In THE REAL ESTATE CLIENT: VALUATION SERVES IMPORTANT MASTERS IN LITIGATION CASES, forensic accounting expert witness Richard M. Squar, CPA, CVA, ABV, CFF, MBA-Taxation, writes:

Before the business appraiser can focus on the specific value of the limited partnership interest, the value of the entire partnership based on the sum of the individual asset values less the partnership liabilities needs to be determined. The appraisal valuation date is critical, such date normally concurring with the date the transaction(s) regarding alleged effects upon the injured party occurred. The valuation date may be expanded to include the date of trial.

Some valuation concepts have evolved to the point of becoming standards of value. It is important that users of a valuation expert understand which standard of value the business valuation expert utilizes. Deciding the appropriate standard of value to use is where the expert often begins.

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In Study Questions Use of Paid Medical Expert Witnesses in Malpractice Cases, Newswise.com writes:

A study by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers found that 31 radiologists who reviewed the CT scans used in a medical malpractice lawsuit did not agree with the conclusions reached by four paid medical expert witnesses in the case.

This suggests that the use of radiologists who are blinded to both the medical outcome and the litigation in such cases may be a more objective way of determining whether or not the standard of care has been met, said Richard C. Semelka, MD, lead author of the study and professor of radiology in the UNC School of Medicine.

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The criminal trial of the American pilots of the Legacy jet that collided with a Boeing 737 over the Amazon in 2006 moved forward this month when the judge decided he has no need to hear seven defense witnesses. Mato Grosso federal court judge Fábio Henrique Rodrigues de Moraes Fiorenzage ruled that the witnesses’ testimony was dispensable because they were either passengers on the Legacy who lacked technical knowledge or aviation specialists who did not witness the episode, according to Joel Weiss, attorney for the Legacy’s pilots Joe Lepore and Jan Paul Paladino.

Lepore and Paladino were at 37,000 feet when the Legacy and the 737 operating Gol Flight 1907 collided. Both aircraft were flying in accordance with ATC clearances. Four air traffic controllers are also on trial. The Legacy’s transponder was turned off for close to an hour before the collision. The judge rejected the aviation expert witnesses put forth by the defense, instead asking the Brazilian Air Force to supply someone from among its personnel to explain the ATC system.

Read more: ainonline.com.

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ITC Midwest personnel and environmental expert witnesses testified earlier this month before the Iowa Utilities Board in a case involving a proposed transmission line in Dubuque County. ITC Seven Dubuque County landowners testified to their objection of the 81-mile, 345-kilovolt line running through their properties during the hearing at the Delaware County Community Center in Manchester.
Concerns included land development, human and livestock health, and gas lines already on the properties. The next hearings, during which expert witnesses for the landowners will be cross-examined, are scheduled for Oct. 5-7.

Read more: thonline.com.