DO YOU REALLY KNOW WHO THE EXPERT IS IN YOUR INJURY CASE? YES, IT COULD MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE IN THE OUTCOME OF YOUR PERSONAL INJURY CASE.

By Ben Sessions on October 31st, 2017 in Personal Injury

We all recognize that the truthfulness of you really matters, but the truthfulness, credibility, and reliability of the witnesses in your injury case may make a real difference in the recovery (or lack of recovery) in your personal injury case. So, do you really know who the expert is in your injury case? That expert witness may very well be an essential part of the puzzle to getting you the recovery that you deserve as a result of this accident, but that expert witness may also be a tremendous liability as a result of an established history of questionable opinions.

Consider, for example, this recent case that was decided by the Georgia Court of Appeals on October 27, 2017:

We also take special note that another federal court has previously found Dr. Wardell’s testimony unreliable in a FELA case for similar reasons. Bowers, 537 FSupp.2d at 1354-59. The Bowers court first explained that Dr. Wardell had failed to demonstrate that his causation opinions were testable, had failed to offer any error rate for his opinions, had not shown evidence that his opinions have been peer reviewed or that he used a peer-reviewed source to reach his opinions, and had failed to show the general acceptance of his opinions. Id. at 1353-54. Turning to the five additional factors trial courts are permitted to use for testing expert opinions set forth in the advisory committee notes under Rule 702, the court found that Dr. Wardell was not testifying about matters growing naturally and directly out of research he conducted independent of litigation, but rather that he had developed his opinions expressly for purposes of litigation.10 Id. at 1354 (noting that plaintiff’s counsel sent him from his home in Savannah to Suffolk, Virginia to see Dr. Wardell, not for treatment, but to build his case for litigation). As in this case, the Bowers court concluded that Dr. Wardell had “unjustifiably extrapolated from an accepted premise to an unfounded conclusion.” Id. at 1355 (“Absent from this vague premise is any specific information about the amount of [movement] that is harmful to an individual, the length of time over which such harm normally occurs, and the nature of the resulting harm.”).11 “Expert testimony lacks ‘fit’ when a large analytical leap must be made between the facts and the opinion.” (Punctuation omitted.) Id. at 1351 (citing GE v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 147 (118 SCt 512, 139 LE2d) (1997)).

SMITH v. CSX TRANSPORTATION, INC., No. A17A1201, 2017 WL 4856316, at *5 (Ga. Ct. App. Oct. 27, 2017).

There are many pieces that must all be present in order to successfully maximize the recovery in your personal injury case. We understand the importance of paying attention to the details (like know about a potential expert’s history of being rejected by trial courts). If you have been injured in a car accident or other incident that was not your fault, call The Sessions Law Firm today.