The Role of Expert Witnesses in Personal Injury Cases

The success of many personal injury cases depends on the testimony of one or more experts on your behalf. Often, a personal injury case depends on the testimony of your expert versus the testimony of an expert witness for the defense.

What is an expert witness?

An expert witness is someone who has special knowledge or expertise based on their education, training, experience, and/or knowledge. Expert witnesses help the judge and jury understand complex issues. Effective experts have the ability to explain complex issues in terms the judge and jury can understand.

According to the federal rules of evidence, an expert witness may give opinions if the proponent (plaintiff or defendant) can demonstrate the following:

• The expert’s scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.
• The testimony is based on sufficient facts or data.
• The testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods.
• The expert’s opinion reflects a reliable application of the principles and methods to the facts of the case.

These rules apply in federal courts, which follow the Daubert standard. Generally, in Washington DC, the proponent’s expertise must have gained general acceptance in the particular field in which they belong (the Frye standard).

At Nace Law Group, we understand the questions to ask to verify the qualifications of our expert witnesses and to contest the qualifications of the expert witnesses for the defendants.

What types of experts testify in personal injury cases?

There are many different types of expert witnesses, depending on the type of personal injury case.

Some types of expert witnesses that may become involved in personal injury cases include the following:

Liability experts

• Car accidents, truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, and other vehicle accidents. We work with:
  • Traffic reconstruction experts. These experts use the principles of engineering, physics, electronics, hydraulics, software, and other scientific disciplines, and computer graphics to explain how accidents happen (second by second and step by step).
  • Vehicle product safety experts. We work with experts who understand the various parts of the vehicles involved in your accident. These experts can testify that these parts are defective due to improper design, construction, warnings, or instructions. Possible defective products include brakes, windshield wipers, fuel lines, tires, electric components, hydraulic components, software, seatbelts, and airbags.
  • Trucking industry experts. We work with experts who understand the acceptable industry standards for hiring drivers, ensuring the safety of their trucks, monitoring their drivers, examining black boxes and electronic logging devices, and other truck safety requirements.
• Medical malpractice experts. We work with physicians, hospital administrators, and other medical professionals who can explain why your medical provider failed to provide competent medical care for their type of medical malpractice. Some of the doctors we work with include gynecologists, obstetricians, general surgeons, neurologists, orthopedists, oncologists, and cardiologists.
• Product liability experts. In addition to working with product safety experts who specialize in vehicles, we work with product safety experts who can testify about defective machines, equipment, electronic products, medical devices, medications, child products, and consumer goods.
• Building and property experts. Our personal injury lawyers work with building code officials, fire officials, and experts who handle everything to make buildings safe, including electricians, snow removal experts, lighting experts, and security experts. These experts can help with premises liability cases.
• Other experts. We work with other experts, depending on your type of claim, the arguments of the defense, and many other factors.

Damage experts

• Medical experts. We work with your physicians, psychologists, rehabilitative team, prosthetists, and our network of physicians who can qualify to testify about your injuries. Common personal injuries include brain injuries, spinal cord damage, paralysis, traumatic amputation, burns, broken bones, nerve damage, birth injuries, organ damage, and many other injuries. These experts can testify about the following:
  • Diagnosing your specific injuries.
  • Verifying that your injuries are due to your accident or the negligence of others.
  • Identifying the different types of medical treatments you, or a loved one, will need to improve your/their health, handle complications, and prevent the injuries from worsening.
  • Explaining your prognosis, which includes your pain and suffering, loss of bodily function, ability/inability to work, inability to enjoy life’s pleasures, any permanent scarring or disfigurement, and all other consequences of your injuries.
• Economic experts. When necessary, we work with financial experts who can testify about your loss of income and benefits due to your injuries, including income losses due to a permanent disability. Financial experts are often necessary if the victims run their own businesses.
• Life planners. These experts help place a value on a victim’s damages if they have a catastrophic injury that requires long-term medical care. The damages may include home renovation costs and many other expenses to help patients with traumatic brain injuries, paralysis, and other life-changing injuries.
• Wrongful death experts. These experts help to place an economic value on the value of a family’s wrongful death case. These experts can testify as to the funeral and burial costs, the loss of financial support your loved one would have provided, and the value of the guidance, comfort, and other types of personal support your loved one would have provided. The evaluation will consider the type of work your loved one did, their salary or income, their benefits, the ages and relationships of the family members, your loved one’s life expectancy, and many other factors.

Factors in choosing an expert witness

The right expert can affect the success of your personal claim. Our lawyers review many factors when choosing expert witnesses, including the following:

• The type of expertise that is necessary
• The expert’s education, experience, and credentials
• The ability of the expert to prepare reports and provide explanations and opinions that are clear and easy to understand – especially for jury members who often have little knowledge about the issues the expert is testifying about.
• The expert’s prior record and experience in personal injury cases
• The expert’s overall reputation

Expert witnesses are often critical for the success of personal injury cases. At Nace Law Group, we’ve helped many clients like you obtain strong recoveries. We work with a broad range of liability and damage experts. Please call us or fill out our contact form to schedule a free consultation. Our lawyers meet clients in Washington, DC and West Virginia.