Civil Commitments in North Carolina May Require Expert Witnesses to Act as Lawyers

Gavel and Stethoscope on Reflective Table

State laws typically allow the civil commitment of an individual who is dangerous to himself or others because of a mental disease. The procedures that must be followed to secure a commitment order vary from state to state. When the allegedly dangerous person is brought into the mental health system by a police officer, states […]

MedMal Cases with Unclear Causes of Death or Injury Can’t Proceed Without Sufficient Expert Testimony in Arizona

The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that medical malpractice cases involving unclear causes of death or injury cannot proceed without sufficient expert testimony to provide guidance to jurors. The Incident In March 2012, Michelle Sampson took her four-year-old son, Amaré Burks, to the Surgery Center of Peoria for a scheduled tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy. Surgery Center […]

Defense Expert Disqualified for Insufficient Credentials

A defense expert in a capital murder case has been disqualified for insufficient credentials. The Crime On January 13, 2018, Dr. Shauna Witt, an optometrist, was seeing a patient at a Walmart Vision Center in Starkville, Mississippi. Her ex-boyfriend, William Thomas “Tommy” Chisholm, entered the store and proceeded into a patient room. Dr. Witt told […]

The FTC Is Searching for Expert Witness

Expert witnesses are in short supply at the Federal Trade Commission after Carl Shapiro, an economist who teaches at the University of California – Berkeley, declined to participate in the FTC’s antitrust suit against Facebook. Facebook Litigation In December 2020, the FTC sued Facebook for engaging in anticompetitive practices. The FTC alleged that Facebook has […]

Expert Testimony May Be Necessary to Counter ShotSpotter Evidence

The latest technology to capture the attention of law enforcement is called ShotSpotter. The manufacturer claims that hidden microphones installed in neighborhoods can tell the difference between gunshots and other loud noises. Rather than waiting for someone to report a shooting, police agencies that rely on the technology dispatch officers to the location where the […]

Expert Testimony Excluded in Michael Mann Defamation Lawsuit

More than two decades ago, Michael Mann and two other climate scientists published an article in Nature. The article included a graph showing that the Earth’s temperature had been stable for 500 years but had spiked upward in the twentieth century. A year later, they extended the graph to cover an entire millennium, supporting their […]

Georgia Court Reinstates Malpractice Verdict Despite Expert’s Equivocal Testimony About a Nationwide Standard of Care

Connie Lockhart was treated in a hospital emergency room in Cherokee County, Georgia. An emergency room physician, Dr. Glenn Bloom, mistakenly placed a catheter in her femoral artery rather than a femoral vein. The accumulation of medications administered through the catheter destroyed the tissue in her leg, resulting in its amputation. Lockhart sued Dr. Bloom […]

Defense Expert’s Opinion About Life Expectancy Was Properly Excluded in Washington Wrongful Death Case

Doy Coogan operated an excavation business. During his lifetime, he repaired several cars, as well as industrial equipment that the business used. To make the car and equipment repairs, Coogan purchased brakes, clutches, and other asbestos-containing parts from local NAPA stores. Coogan was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a disease that has only known cause: asbestos exposure. […]

Court to Evaluate Validity of Forensic Ballistics

A Virginia court will evaluate the validity of forensic ballistic and firearm examination. The Crime On February 17, 2018, 74-year-old Mary Jackson and her pregnant granddaughter, 33-year-old Tiffany Byers, were found shot to death at home. The body of Byers’ husband, 45-year-old Aaron Byers, was later found in a shallow grave on a property owned […]

Opioid Manufacturers Challenge Addiction Expert’s Testimony

The attorneys for the manufacturers of opioids have challenged the credibility of an addiction expert who testified that their client’s misleading marketing materials helped to cause the opioid epidemic that has plagued thousands of families in Long Island since the late 1990s. The Case The lawsuit at issue was filed in New York State Supreme […]

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