Articles by Expert Witnesses

“Dates of destiny are always on time.” - Anonymous “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The great thing in this world is not so much where you stand, as in what direction you are moving.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes

I am consistently amazed by the resiliency of the human spirit I see in our County. As Americans, we all have a bit of that “Pioneering Spirit” that moved our for bearers to forge new pathways into the unknown. That resilient pioneering spirit is alive

To find guidance, we talked with Rosemary Coates, the Executive Director of the California-based Reshoring Institute, a non-profit that provides information, research, and support for companies trying to reshore their manufacturing and services back into the United States. (Full disclosure, Rosemary is also co-author of the supply chain treatise, Legal Blacksmith: How to Avoid and Defend Supply Chain Disputes, with SPB partner Sarah Rathke. She is also an expert witness and the President of Blue Silk Consulting.)

Lost profit cases typically involve a wrongdoer, the defendant, who caused economic damage to a wronged party, the plaintiff. To recover what was lost by the defendant’s wrongful action, the plaintiff must prove in a court of law that they suffered general damages, including lost profits. They must show the defendant caused a specific or estimated loss that is reasonably certain, not a guess. Lost profit calculations are necessary to prove damages in breach of contract actions that require plaintiffs to prove damages that the parties could have foreseen at the time they made their agreement.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) released updated rules amending its administrative review regulations. The new rules only apply to plans covered by PBGC’s single-employer plan termination program. These updated rule amends PBGC’s regulations on rules of administrative review of agency decisions to clarify, simplify, and make other editorial changes to the language, as well as to codify PBGC practices.

The financial impact to someone’s credit profile after it has been harmed.

This article explains the hush-hush losses among statistical arbitragers. Statarbers are exposed to factors, which have been dispersing recently, and so should the statarbers. The likely soluton is that large redemptions are taking place, starting by the quant-equity managers, the risk-parity programs and the highly leveraged large multi-strategy hedge funds.

Recent market moves are extreme, but such events are far from rare. Actually, they are quite frequent. Nevertheless investors (from modest to institutional) sell insurances against market crashes, and repeatedly lose institutional amount of money. Malachite Capital, a $600m NY hedge fund, has been selling tail risk in various forms in extremely large quantities. They just announced that they are in default. Problem, their positions are so large, that they might take several broker-dealers with them.

The market events of the last week have been drastic, not only in movements, but also in volatility surface deformation. Bridgewater's purchase of 1,000,000 lot of options as a hedge is probably a cause of the current volatility

Thanks to the women of the #MeToo movement, who have courageously exposed rampant sexual harassment and assault, our society is being forced to confront this upsetting reality and change it for future generations. The massage treatment room is a microcosm of the greater society, so we sadly find the same types of issues there. Much like in the greater community, more attention needs to be paid to this phenomenon in the field of massage.

The “Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act” (SECURE) was signed into law on December 20, 2019. The new law represents the most significant changes to 401(k), IRA and other retirement plans in more than a decade.

Outside persons can help lawyers win their cases. One example of such assistance for lawyers is the use of California construction expert witnesses to achieve success in construction law cases in California.

It is often mistakenly assumed that forensic psychiatry expert witnesses only assist lawyers in criminal litigation cases. In fact, they can help lawyers in many other types of litigation.

While forensic psychiatry expert witnesses can assist lawyers in criminal and other litigation cases. they can also help lawyers in non-litigation matters. Lawyers can use forensic psychiatrists to add certainty and minimize risk in non-litigation matters.

Lawyers often rely on third parties to help them succeed in their cases. One person who lawyers can use to assist them in prevailing in their cases is the forensic psychiatry expert witness.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s (PBGC) Fiscal Year 2019 Annual Report was released in November, 2019. The Report showed that from FY 2018 to FY 2019 the Multiemployer Insurance Program’s deficit went up $11.3 billion (FY 2018- $53.9 billion; FY 2019- $65.2 billion), while the Single-Employer Program saw a positive net position of $8.7 billion.

Businesses that include proper contract language instructing a licensee how to calculate a royalty, the specific documents to retain and that have a proactive licensee monitoring program are best positioned to achieve higher royalty revenues at reduced monitoring costs without damaging business relationships.

This article provides a conceptual framework for understanding legal capacity and describes the components and legal basis of a psychological assessment of testamentary capacity, contractual capacity, undue influence, and the capacity to make medical decisions. It may serve as a reference for attorneys to identify the key aspects of an effective capacity evaluation, and to prepare for cross-examination of opposing experts.

This article reviews best practices for conducting psychological personal injury evaluations in civil proceedings. It may be useful for attorneys to review in order to understand the components of an effective personal injury evaluation and to prepare for the cross-examination of opposing psychological experts.

This article reviews the legal basis, research foundations, and a potential evaluation structure of youthful offender mitigation evaluations in California.

What you can expect to pay an Expert Witness in Medicine

Pension plan sponsors in the U.S. continued to pursue a strategy known as “pension risk transfer” in 2019. According to the Secure Retirement Institute (formerly LIMRA SRI), 2019 year-to-date pension buy-out sales totaled $16.7 billion through the third quarter, which is a 4% increase over 2018.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is one of the most common psychological conditions that’s reported by plaintiffs in personal injury cases.

A Summary Judgment ruling in Steves and Sons, Inc. v. JELD-WEN, Inc. heard in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in 2018, provides guidance to trade secret owners seeking damages under the Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA”). The Court ruled that trade-secret damages may include anticipated future use of the trade secret under the DTSA if the anticipated future use is non-speculative and based on solid evidence.

What does it mean when a defendant pleads, Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI)? You’ve probably heard the term “insanity” thrown around but most people don’t know the legal criteria for an NGRI plea. “Insanity” is a legal term rather than a medical or mental health term. In order to understand how criminal responsibility is evaluated, you have to have an understanding of the legal criteria of NGRI. The goal of this blog post is to provide an overview of the laws regarding insanity and how we evaluate individuals to determine if they are not guilty by reason of insanity.

The terms insanity and competency are two legal terms that come up often in the criminal justice system. Most people get the two terms mixed up and don’t know the differences between them.

If you’ve watched enough Law and Order, you’ve probably heard the term “Incompetent to Stand Trial (IST)” or competency to stand trial. We get a lot of questions from attorneys asking us if their clients are competent to stand trial. The rules and laws surrounding competency to stand trial can be confusing and difficult to understand. The goal of this blog post is to provide an overview of the laws regarding competency to stand trial and how we evaluate individuals to determine if they are competent.

Retirement plan administrators will be able to electronically deliver certain disclosure documents to plan participants under new rules proposed by the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) on October 22, 2019. The proposal is expected to save an estimated $2.4 billion of net costs over the next 10 years for ERISA-covered retirement plans through reduced mailing, printing, and material expenses.

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is getting more attention than ever before. Media outlets have done a great job at highlighting the impact of TBI and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) on football players. This extra attention and research are great news for anyone that’s experienced a TBI.

Personal injury evaluations have become common place in personal injury and worker’s compensation litigation. We get a lot of requests from personal injury attorneys to complete psychological or neuropsychological evaluations for their personal injury cases. Psychological and neuropsychological damages (e.g. traumatic brain injury) in personal injury cases can be more complicated to evaluate than physical health-related damages. We wrote this article to help answer the common questions that come up in these cases. The goal of this article is to: 1. Explain how we would complete a psychological or neuropsychological evaluation in a personal injury case. 2. Discuss the potential problems that attorneys need to be aware of when retaining an expert to complete a personal injury evaluation.

Civil competency is an area that gets significantly less attention than competency in criminal proceedings. It’s definitely not a topic that you are going to see on Law & Order anytime soon. We regularly get questions about civil competency and the mental capacity standards in civil litigation. While the standards for competency civil litigation have some things in common with the standards for competency in criminal proceedings, they have their own unique set of legal standards. In this article we’re going to talk about the California rules and regulations in various civil competency proceedings and how an expert assesses for competency in these cases.

In 2017, the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Advocated Health Care Network v. Stapleton that the Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) did not apply to church-affiliated hospitals and assumedly other church-affiliated organizations.

Important points to consider when evaluating seating for a high use restaurant, hotel, casino, timeshare resort, university or cruise line environment.

Research from The PEW Charitable Trusts (PEW) has evaluated what policies and factors could be inhibiting certain states from reducing their public pension system funding gaps.

In this article, the author explains the basics of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)--in particular the Automatic Telephone Dialing System (ATDS) element of the statute. He illustrates the risks associated with the use of "dialers" to communicate via voice or text and provides a detailed checklist of Dos and Don'ts. This is a purely objective checklist that applies equally to Plaintiffs and Defendants.

A properly qualified expert witness is essential, but it becomes especially crucial in the event of brain injuries where training and credentials are not all equal. For example, the event that causes Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) or Concussions might also lead to PTSD or emotional distress. A Forensic Psychiatrist is adequately qualified to address the PTSD or emotional distress, but may not have the depth of training necessary to evaluate TBI and its impact. These inter-relationships, or lack, are best understood and assessed by a qualified Expert Witness in both Psychiatry and Brain Injury Medicine. In addition, a Forensic Psychiatrist has additional experience with the medico-legal aspects of a case. Helping juries understand complex cross-over conditions may require an Expert with a unique background and credentials.

The Department of Labor, through the Employee Benefits Security Administration, issued a final rule on July 29, 2019 that expands retirement options for millions of workers employed by small businesses.

Investigations into child pornography offenses often begin with the receipt of a CyberTipline Report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Both prosecutors and defense attorneys should be familiar with these reports and the information they can contain.

Do you want to win your slip, trip, and fall cases that take place in restaurants? Of course, you do. Did you know that slips, trips, and falls in the restaurant industry are completely different from slips, trips, and falls in any other industry? Here we will help you find out just how different they really are and give you some critical insider insight that will help you win these restaurant industry cases and may even inspire you to want to take on more restaurant industry matters to expand your legal practice.

In child pornography cases, attorneys often rely on computer forensic examiners to look for evidence that a suspect or defendant possessed or shared contraband material. The sentencing criteria in these cases can be complex so it is important that attorneys convey to the examiner what to look for and how to report it.

Reporting and compliance requirements for certain multiemployer pension plans have been amended by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (“PBGC”), effective July 1, 2019.

In some situations, displays that expert witnesses use may create confusion to jurors instead of providing clarification on an issue. The display interface can lead to misinterpretations and misunderstandings if the jurors are not as up to date on technology or how the display explains the material. Being aware of this information can help expert witnesses refrain from using confusing displays or use displays that increase juror understanding.

Many hotels have elected to install barn style doors inside the hotel rooms. These doors are creating accidents to the hotel guests.

The aspect of lawyer and client privilege and what the expert can expect in a case may depend if he or she is a designated expert witness or a consultant only researching matters and helping the lawyer hire another expert witness. Keeping research non-discoverable is important in certain litigation claims or criminal investigations.

Litigation can protect an expert witness that acts either as a consultant or someone that works in the background of a case through research, reports and testing of evidence with the case materials. The research may remain confidential even with discovery rules depending on the specific situation and the information involved in this process.

Accountant expert witnesses have certain professional rules that apply to both work and testimony or reports involved in the cases or claims that these accountants will work with and in which may change what will occur. These professional rules affect how the expert works and what he or she will progress through with the evidence.

ERISA plan sponsors or administrators may be required to use a new form and instructions for all types of future coverage determination requests, according to a notice published in the Federal Register on May 8, 2019 by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC).

Sometimes, the conclusion that the expert witness comes to in a case is not what the lawyer wants because it does not support the argument the lawyer is making or trying to convince the courtroom about with the details. When this occurs, the professional hired will need to explain why his or her conclusion is counter to the argument.

When becoming part of a case, the expert witness will need a solid retainer agreement with specific provisions and stipulations about what pay to receive, what work is important for the case and which duties will reimburse the professional when he or she pays for them. This retainer agreement usually is the first step in a lawyer and expert relationship.