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The Massachusetts Supreme court ruled Wednesday against Walmart in a victory for some 67,500 current and former employees who claimed the retail giant withheld their wages and cut short their breaks The Boston Herald reports:

The Supreme Judicial Court vacated a 2006 trial court ruling that decertified the hourly employees’ class-action lawsuit, excluded testimony of their expert witness and granted partial summary judgment to Wal-Mart. The SJC said the judge “abused his discretion” because he “acted not on the basis of any challenge to (the expert’s) methodology, but essentially on his view that the records themselves were insufficiently reliable.”

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In The Current Problems and Solutions with Examinations on reported stolen Vehicles automobile expert witness Rob Painter writes that expert witnesses who do stolen vehicle examinations should have proper training, not only in locks, but burn debris analysis, security system analysis, steering column locking mechanism understanding, and in general how and why vehicles are stolen.

I recently received a phone call from a carrier in the Chicago area. He requested services of a locksmith to determine if reported stolen vehicles were stolen. This in itself raised concern for many reasons. The general locksmith without proper training should not be involved with these vehicles especially when recovered burned. I have been to seminars where locksmiths speak about theft. The problem is that they focus in on how they would make a key to take the vehicle. It has been my experience to hear such speakers never address how a thief would commonly defeat the column. The examiner needs to think like a thief and not a general locksmith.

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The Boston Herald reports:

The state’s highest court yesterday delivered a huge victory for some 67,500 current and former Massachusetts employees of Wal-Mart who claimed the retail giant systematically withheld their wages and cut short their breaks.

The Supreme Judicial Court vacated a 2006 trial court ruling that decertified the hourly employees’ class-action lawsuit, excluded testimony of their expert witness and granted partial summary judgment to Wal-Mart. The employees’ case, first filed in 2001, will now proceed in Middlesex Superior Court.

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In The Current Problems and Solutions with Examinations on reported stolen Vehicles automobile expert witness Rob Painter writes that expert witnesses who do stolen vehicle examinations should have proper training, not only in locks, but burn debris analysis, security system analysis, steering column locking mechanism understanding, and in general how and why vehicles are stolen.

I recently was consulted on a case from out east where the examiner said the 2002 Nissan Altima could not be stolen because it had a transponder. This examiner is nuts to say that. This vehicle was a total strip and was towed. The transponder will not stop towing! In another case I was consulted on in Michigan, the “expert” actually put in his report that the car was not towed! How did it get from the recovery site to where he examined it?

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The apparel expert witness can opine on issues regarding garment manufacturing, clothing durability, and flammable fabrics. Phoenix.gov explains that:

All fabrics will burn but some are more combustible than others. Untreated natural fibers such as cotton, linen and silk burn more readily than wool, which is more difficult to ignite and burns with a low flame velocity.

The weight and weave of the fabric will affect how easily the material will ignite and burn. Recommended fabrics are materials with a tight weave – wool, modacrylic, 100 percent polyester and those that are flame-retardant treated. Heavy, tight weave fabrics will burn more slowly than loose weave, light fabrics of the same material. The surface texture of the fabric also affects flammability. Fabrics with long, loose, fluffy pile or “brushed” nap will ignite more readily than fabrics with a hard, tight surface, and in some cases will result in flames flashing across the fabric surface.

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In The Current Problems and Solutions with Examinations on reported stolen Vehicles automobile expert witness Rob Painter writes that expert witnesses who do stolen vehicle examinations should have proper training, not only in locks, but burn debris analysis, security system analysis, steering column locking mechanism understanding, and in general how and why vehicles are stolen.

There have been many times over the years that investigators asked me if I thought the insured committed fraud. In this case it does not matter what I think and that determination I am not qualified to do. I also cannot determine if a vehicle is stolen and neither can anyone else unless they were a party to the crime. All the examiner should be concerned about is how that vehicle last operated under its own power last.

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The Senate version of the Patent Reform Act (S1145) was taken off the schedule in April 2008, meaning it will not be considered by the full Senate any time in the near future. Patents expert witness Daryl Martin’s company website Consor writes:

Large IT companies and other technology companies are trying to reign in huge patent settlements ones like the $600 million plus award that NTP won from Research In Motion, the maker of the Blackberry wireless device, is a good example. Another example is the $1.5 billion award that Lucent briefly won from Gateway and Microsoft – currently under review.

While it appears that some of the Senate’s leadership is sympathetic for large technology companies, there is a small group of very high profile inventors and investors like the Segway designers and some of the Apple technology people, as well as venture capitalists, and a growing array of smaller businesses that do not share the market power of these larger companies. In addition, opposed to the patent reform act is the pharmaceutical industry, which has traditionally relied on the protection of a strong patent system.

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Both Robert LaPointe and Terry Raye Trott apparently violated boating safety rules prior to a fatal boat crash on Long Lake, Maine, last summer, witnesses for the state testified at LaPointe’s manslaughter trial Tuesday. Milford Daily News writes:

LaPointe, 39, of Medway, Mass., was going too fast at night and did not exercise care to avoid a collision when he came up on Trott’s boat from behind, said Maine Warden Kevin Anderson and boat reconstruction expert William Chilcott.

Trott was in violation because his rear “all-around” light was not working, and he may not have had a sounding device on his motorboat, they said.But both witnesses agreed that under federal navigation rules, LaPointe was at fault for the Aug. 11, 2007, crash. His obligation as the boat coming up from behind superseded the obligation Trott had to maintain proper lighting, they said.

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The Senate version of the Patent Reform Act (S1145) was taken off the schedule in April 2008, meaning it will not be considered by the full Senate any time in the near future. Patents expert witness Daryl Martin’s company website Consor writes:

The bill has been delayed because of the controversies surrounding specific provisions. Those are the provisions dealing with a limit on damages remedies in patent infringement, where the limit on damages would be established as the net contribution over and above the portion attributable to the prior art or other technology or patents contained in a product – in other words, instead of being able to award damages based on the total value of a product (an entire cell phone, for example), damages would be based only on the improvement or incremental contribution made by the specific patent being infringed.

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n Appraisal Review in a Litigation Support Role real estate expert witness Jack P. Friedman, Ph.D., MAI, CPA, ASA, CRE, describes how the appraisal review process and review appraiser are used effectively in litigation support.

When engaged, or rather enmeshed, in litigation, an attorney will often solicit support from a review appraiser. Typical areas of assistance the attorney needs are:

3. To provide other forms of litigation support, such as preparing courtroom exhibits and helping to frame questions to ask appraisal experts on both sides at depositions and during trial testimony.

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