The hearing on the Las Brisas Energy Center, a $3 billion, 1,200-megawatt petroleum coke-fueled power plant proposed for the north side of the Corpus Christi Ship Channel, will be delayed until November.  After that hearing, the judge will make a written recommendation to the three commissioners of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality about whether the air permit application meets standards.  It would be the area’s largest investment and the largest source of some types of emissions. It has received preliminary approval.

The order setting hearing dates aligns more than 70 parties into nine groups for the purpose of streamlining the proceedings. The nine groups are Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, medical groups, Texas Clean Air, League of United Latin American Citizens Council No. 1, Clean Economy Coalition, individuals, Citizens for Environmental Justice and Roger Landress. The parties will gather evidence and expert witnesses to present during an evidentiary hearing  similar to a case in district civil court.

For more, see Caller.com.

David Tuffin helps lead the expert witness team for the building consultancy firm Tuffin Ferraby Taylor and authored In my expert opinion: How to pick an expert witness:

Independence

According to the Civil Procedure Rules “it is the duty of an expert to help the courts on the matters within his expertise and this duty overrides any obligation to the person from whom he has received instruction.”

Courts tend not to look favourably at witnesses with a vested interest in the outcome of a hearing. It is therefore important to make sure you assess any potential conflict of interest from the start. The safest option is to get an expert from an independent firm.

Mediation

The high cost of going to court is resulting in the majority of disputes – about 80% – being resolved through negotiations and mediation. This will usually see the experts for both sides sitting around a table and arguing their cases in order to find a middle ground. Mediation is a fine art and therefore finding an expert who is experienced in mediation and has undergone specific training can work to your advantage.

More to come from: http://www.building.co.uk/.

More to come from: http://www.building.co.uk/.

The collapse of state-regulated insurance subsidiaries could result in a significant tax hike for nearly all Americans, warns an insurance policy expert with the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  Eli Lehrer, who first warned about potential problems with AIG’s US-based insurance subsidiaries in September of 2008, warns that a second scandal appears to be brewing with regard to the insurance giant.

“AIG subsidiaries are likely in worse shape than appeared at first blush,” Lehrer explained.  So far, AIG has sold only one of its 72 subsidiaries that sell insurance in the U.S.  Past collapses have not been a big deal because they have been small; but an AIG collapse would not be small. “In the past, when insurers have collapsed, it has meant that people in a few states have seen surcharges of a few dollars on their insurance policies—annoying, but not a big deal,” said Lehrer. “A bailout of AIG’s insurance businesses could mean enormous new taxes for just about everyone. Some people might see a very unwelcome surprise in their insurance bill.”  Lehrer compared the situation to another famous corporate collapse. “On the surface, this looks a lot like Enron,” said Lehrer. “A lot of the underlying business may have had serious problems.”

Occupational medicine expert Dr. Mohammed Ranavaya is an expert witness in a case concerning pulmonary illness in first responders to the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11. Ranavaya is chief of the division of occupational and disability medicine at the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, WV, and will determine the nature and extent of lung injuries sustained by firefighters and first responders as a result of the World Trade Center disaster.  Ranavaya says many first responders were exposed to various toxic pollutants when the towers came down, from dust and debris to fumes. "As a result of that, they developed the pulmonary problems and they were diagnosed with a variety of ailments by the local doctors," he said.

Many first responders began applying for medical benefits related to ailments such as asthma or bronchitis after 9/11. "One of the questions is, how much of their lung problems were related to the exposure during the World Trade Center disaster and how much was pre-existing?" he said.

Excerpted from Herald-Dispatch.com.

Jeffrey Segal, a retired neurosurgeon, launched Medical Justice 10 years ago to fight frivolous malpractice suits.  He now encourages doctors to require patients to sign a "mutual privacy agreement" before treatment to prevent patients rating them on Web.  By signing, the patient promises not to post critical comments about his or her care on the Internet without the doctor's permission.  Segal says it is a lack of oversight and accountability on the Web sites that troubles doctors.  "People are free to post any type of commentary," said Segal. "Most of these sites have only two, three, four reviews on a physician. There's no verification that the person was a patient. They could be a disgruntled employee, an ex-spouse, a competitor -- anyone trying to create some havoc."

Segal argues that doctors have no way to challenge unfair or inaccurate ratings -- federal patient privacy laws prevent doctors from responding.  Segal acknowledged that online ratings are here to stay, so his group is working on a site of its own that will require verification that the poster actually was a patient of the physician, that a minimum of 50 reports come in before a rating is posted, and that a medical expert back up a patient's criticism of the medical care.  With those protections, he said, "I think we can get physicians to buy in."

In Five Points the Government MUST Consider Before Doling Out Billions to the Construction Industry construction expert Barry LePatner has this to say:

"The government is about to embark on what is essentially bailout #3," says LePatner. "Obviously, the last two were less than successful. They'd better get this one right, or public trust will be irrevocably damaged. This stimulus plan should be handled with a lot of transparency and follow through—two characteristics the construction industry, the most inefficient industry in our nation, isn't known for.

"When you consider the huge number of projects that must be completed in order to restore America's infrastructure, it is clear that measures must be taken to ensure that money allocated for infrastructure projects is used wisely and for the betterment of the nation," he adds. "Our government must ensure that infrastructure project contracts are all undertaken with true fixed-price contracts that pass the risk for poor performance onto the contractors who fail to complete them on time and on budget. Our leaders' credibility, not to mention our nation's future safety and viability, depends on it."

Excerpted from The American Surveyor.

In Five Points the Government MUST Consider Before Doling Out Billions to the Construction Industry construction expert Barry LePatner has this to say:

Enact reforms to help us avoid another Big Dig.  For those who don't know, the Big Dig is the most expensive highway project ever. Its original budget, set back in 1985, was just over $2 billion. It was revealed last year that the real cost of the project will reach $22 billion with a pay-off set for 2038. According to a recent Boston Globe article, the Big Dig has dealt a considerable financial blow to the state of Massachusetts. The article states, "Big Dig payments have already sucked maintenance and repair money away from deteriorating roads and bridges across the state, forcing the state to float more highway bonds and to go even deeper into the hole [...] Massachusetts spends a higher percentage of its highway budget on debt than any other state."

"The Big Dig epitomizes everything that is wrong with the construction industry, which is rife with cost overruns and missed schedules," says LePatner. "Going forward, as infrastructure projects proceed with only limited funding, our nation cannot afford to face cost overruns of 20 percent, 30 percent, or more. There are no available funds to finish projects facing contractor overruns due to the industry's inefficiencies. The industry itself will have to be reformed before we can start making progress on repairing the nation's infrastructure."

Excerpted from The American Surveyor.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled on Friday to uphold the 2005 law allowing state lawmakers to limit who qualifies as a medical malpractice expert witness. The statute says anyone who wants to testify as an expert witness against a physician in a medical malpractice lawsuit must be licensed as a health care provider, a specialist in the same area as the defendant, and actively practicing or teaching in that area.

The Court of Appeals in 2008 ruled that the teaching or practicing requirement was unconstitutional because the rules of evidence enacted by the Supreme Court said that an expert witness must be qualified "by knowledge, skill, experience, training or education." The state Supreme Court justices noted that generally they have the constitutional right to decide the rules governing how trials are conducted, but that the Legislature can enact "substantive" policy changes dictating what plaintiffs who file civil suits must prove to win their cases (Fischer, Arizona Daily Star, 3/15).

In Five Points the Government MUST Consider Before Doling Out Billions to the Construction Industry construction expert Barry LePatner has this to say: 

Create stipulations aimed at avoiding wasted labor costs.The construction industry, now at the crossroads of so many needed projects and potential revival of our jobless situation, has a very bad (though not widely known) reputation for waste. Shockingly, some 50 percent of all labor costs of a project are lost due to late deliveries, poorly coordinated subcontractors, and other circumstances that regularly prevent employees from engaging in productive onsite work. These inefficiencies spring, in part, from the "mom and pop" nature of the businesses involved. But it is also a function of the industry's minimal use of technology, its lack of capital resources, and the fact that productivity per worker has gone down over 22 percent over the past forty years.

"In order to combat this problem, stipulations must be placed in the government contracts awarded," insists LePatner. "Contracts must require that skilled, experienced onsite construction representatives with in-depth knowledge, who can oversee not only quality but the true cost for the work, are retained for these projects."

Excerpted from The American Surveyor.

In a pretrial proceeding AstraZeneca's attorneys tried to convince Judge Joseph Slights III to throw out testimony from pharmacology expert witnesses who connected Seroquel drug use to diabetes. Attorneys and plaintiffs are now watching to see how Slights will rule. A win for AstraZeneca could avert a trial scheduled to start June 29. 

The case was brought by Kansas resident Nina Scaife, 46, who started taking Seroquel in May 2003 and was diagnosed with diabetes a year later, according to testimony.  AstraZeneca, which has said that it will litigate each Seroquel case on its individual merits, argued that Scaife's expert witnesses failed to examine the scientific issues rigorously enough to satisfy legal requirements.

In Five Points the Government MUST Consider Before Doling Out Billions to the Construction Industry construction expert Barry LePatner has this to say:

Invest some stimulus money in advanced technologies. Consider this fact: By the time cracks appear in the structure of one of the nation's bridges, the costs for remediation have skyrocketed. That is why some of the money being allocated for infrastructure projects should go toward purchasing new technology that can help state governments and the federal government save money down the road.

"Technology exists to anticipate bridge remediation years before rust, corrosion, and cracks appear," notes LePatner. "We need to fund states to purchase this equipment and train their inspectors to use it. Enabling bridge inspectors to ensure precision and objectivity in their evaluation process, which in turn allows us to catch problems earlier when they are easier to fix, can save our nation countless millions of dollars in unnecessary remediation costs."

Excerpted from The American Surveyor.

In Five Points the Government MUST Consider Before Doling Out Billions to the Construction Industry construction expert Barry LePatner has this to say:

Make fixed-price contracts mandatory.  In a seemingly helpful provision, the stimulus legislation calls for contracts "to the maximum extent possible" to be awarded as fixed-price contracts through competitive procedures. Unfortunately, that appears to be the extent of what the government understands as being protective of the federal dole.

"One merely needs Google the phrase 'construction cost overruns' to begin to realize the enormous proportions of the waste our country has been dealing with for decades," says LePatner. "Fixed-price contracts on these projects are an absolute must. Without them, contractors will use change orders and delay claims to drive up the costs of these crucial infrastructure projects. In order to obtain these fixed-price contracts, the government should also require that contractors create their bids based on 100 percent complete documents from the architects and engineers. Otherwise, it will be impossible to estimate the true scope of these projects."

Excerpted from The American Surveyor.

 

In What Is the Role of Pathologists In Law and Order, the Star Tribune writes on medical experts:

Thomas and some other Minnesota forensic pathologists say they have an obligation to lend their expertise to either side in a criminal trial, because their loyalty is to the truth, not to one side or the other.

But Backstrom argued that the practice of county-employed coroners testifying for the defense could jeopardize future cases and that it hurts the credibility of medical examiners, and by extension, county attorneys.

"If you wish to be a defense expert, you should not be a public official representing Dakota County as our coroner," Backstrom wrote in one of his e-mails to Thomas.

Jim Franklin, executive director of the Minnesota Sheriffs' Association, agreed with Backstrom.

"One moment you're working for the Dakota County government structure. The next minute you're working for a private entity as an expert witness of a defense case in another particular county," Franklin said. "Where do you turn your county medical examiner experience on or off? Where's the light switch to do that?"

But Dr. John Howard, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, said it's not that simple.

In Five Points the Government MUST Consider Before Doling Out Billions to the Construction Industry construction expert Barry LePatner has this to say:

"The government, too, should do its part to ensure there is adequate protection against this waste in the accountability provisions of the stimulus plan," adds LePatner. "Without a true fixed-price structure for all construction projects that shifts the risk for inefficiency and waste to the construction industry, our government will be back footing the bill for an additional tens of billions of dollars within a few years."

LePatner offers a few steps he would like for the nation's governing bodies to make beforethe infrastructure money is pumped into project contracts:

Create an Infrastructure Czar position. The current stimulus legislation proposes to set up oversight by an Accountability and Transparency Board composed of a chief performance officer and six members designated by the President, including inspectors general and secretaries of the Education, Energy, HHS, Transportation, and other federal departments. But according to LePatner, it's unlikely that any of these officials have a true grasp of the inefficient way the construction industry operates or how to address them in future contracts. In order for these project negotiations to be mediated properly, he advises, the President should create an Infrastructure Czar position.

 

"The Czar should be a savvy construction expert who did not emanate from the construction industry but who is familiar with the low bid/change order process that consistently drives up costs on construction projects," he explains. "This individual must know how critical it is to avoid traps like the fast-track process or guaranteed maximum price traps that never truly guarantee the contract price. A construction expert of this kind will help close the information gap that will likely exist between construction contractors and the policymakers trying to negotiate government contracts."

Excerpted from The American Surveyor.

 

In What Is the Role of Pathologists In Law and Order, the Star Tribune writes on medical experts:

In Dakota County, an intriguing argument is raised over whether medical examiners should be allowed to testify as defense experts. When medical examiners step inside the yellow crime-scene tape, they bring expertise held by just a handful of people in the state. But do they do so as impartial sleuths who simply "follow the evidence," to borrow a phrase, or as public employees with their own loyalties and biases?  Or are they both?

The question is at the heart of an unusual dispute stemming from a Dakota County deputy medical examiner's work with a defense attorney in a Washington County murder trial last year. Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom took exception to a representative of a public office potentially calling prosecution evidence into question during a criminal trial, and his sharp e-mail exchange with medical examiner Dr. Lindsey Thomas led to accusations of coercion when the deputy medical examiner withdrew from the trial.

In Five Points the Government MUST Consider Before Doling Out Billions to the Construction Industry construction expert Barry LePatner has this to say:

He speaks, of course, of the "bailout" money poured into America's financial and automotive industries—industries whose inept and inefficient ways have, to date, prevented the funds from benefitting the American people. And he insists that, sadly, the construction industry is no better. In fact, as amazing as it may seem, it could be even worse!

"When you give money to an industry that, according to recent studies, wastes upwards of $120 billion a year, and don't take the steps necessary to ensure it's used wisely, you are going to end up once again with no ROI," he warns. "That's the stark reality. And for taxpayers already saddled with a terrible economy and a crushing mountain of national debt, this is bad news indeed."

The construction industry's woes are at the center of LePatner's latest book. In it he lays out the industry's biggest problems: rampant cost overruns and missed (in some cases by several years) project deadlines. Grim as it may sound, he predicts that the construction industry will fritter away the $48 billion allotted on projects that may well get underway—but will be abandoned before they're ever finished.

"To advance billions in infrastructure funds for needed roads and bridges only to find we run out of money before they are completed is totally wasteful," says LePatner. "The amount of money being doled out for these projects is finite. Once it's gone, it's gone. Unfortunately, it's highly likely that it will be wasted, and we will end up with a nation of under-maintained highways and byways and useless, only partially completed bridges and roads. Frankly, before infrastructure repairs can be made in a cost-effective and efficient way—both crucial for the current state of the nation—the construction industry must make more than a few repairs of its own.

Excerpted from The American Surveyor.

Herb Zeman, founder of Luminetz Corp. and inventor of the technology for the company’s products, is the subject of an investigation into the dissemination of trade secrets to a competitor. Zeman owns 4.9 million shares in Luminetx and denies hurting the company he founded saying it would not be in his best interest.  The competitor AccuVein is a New York-based company that this year is launching a smaller product that provides the same function as Luminetx’s VeinViewer, which sells for about $25,000 per unit. Zeman, a physicist and retired professor from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, is the expert witness in the patent infringement lawsuit because the patent is in his name.

For more, see The Memphis Daily News.

In Five Points the Government MUST Consider Before Doling Out Billions to the Construction Industry construction expert Barry LePatner has this to say:

Economic stimulus plan funds will soon be distributed to projects and programs across the nation, and without a doubt opinions on the matter are mixed. One definite high note is that the legislation—which includes around $48 billion in infrastructure transportation spending on everything from a high-speed rail service to highway projects to public transportation and intercity rail projects—finally recognizes that our nation's infrastructure is crumbling around us.

But according to construction attorney Barry LePatner, the government had better look before it leaps. Why? Because the legislation authorizing the distribution of this massive funding program assumes that the dollars spent on these projects will be efficiently utilized by a construction industry that is just as broken as the infrastructure it's charged with building and repairing.

"We've already seen what can happen when the government pumps money into broken industries without properly monitoring how it's used: billions of taxpayer dollars are wasted," says LePatner, coauthor of Structural & Foundation Failures and author of Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets: How to Fix America's Trillion-Dollar Construction Industry.

Excerpted from The American Surveyor.

US District Court jurors in Austin rejected the College Network Inc. case against Moore Educational Publishing Inc.  The College Network alleged that  iStudySmart.com was infringing upon their registered trademark by placing pay-per-click bids on the words "college" and "network."  CN sought $150,000 in lost profits, claiming the defendant's pay-per-click advertising practices gave them an undue advantage and lured away customers.

"Bidding on a competitor's registered trademark has become common practice in the search engine marketing industry," said Troy Perkins, founder of Totus Internet Visibility Agency, San Antonio TX. The infringement expert witness gave an online demonstration to show the jury how keyword bidding enables companies to gain first page ranking with companies of like products.

For more, see prweb.com.

In Analysis of Computer Games for Violence Potential, forensic psychology expert

Dr. Julie Armstrong writes:

When a person begins spending an inordinate amount of time playing computer games, we can be sure that they are struggling to keep these violent feelings under control. When a suspect writes his own versions of the game, what we may call add-on scenarios, we can analyze them to better understand this gamer’s emotional world.

In addition to the main play of the game, the gamer puts in subtle and obvious details that give us information about how he perceives the world… his world. From this information we can make some interpretation about his state of mind. When integrated with other information we have, we may be able to take actions that prevent the acting out of violence.

In Conservation Easements, the Good, the Bad and the Greedy, real estate expert Charles B. Warren, A.S.A. writes on value:

Now, let’s dip our toes into the question of value, fundamental land economics. Basically the right to build a replica of the World Trade Center in the middle of the Badlands of the Pine Ridge Indian reservation, South Dakota, would probably not have a large value. The right to extract coal from a property where there is none would probably not have a large value. The right to raise alfalfa on land without a supply of water would probably not have a large value. The converse of those propositions would probably also be true. The right to build the World Trade Center, on Port of New York land, was valuable. While the actual value of the right to rebuild it may be in doubt, that there is a value there is likely. By extension the right to build homes in a region with a static or declining economy and population is likely to be small. If the right attaches to land which is remote from that economic activity and its associated population centers, then it is likely to be lower. It may still be higher than alternative values if, for example, the land in question is timberland which was logged 30 years ago and regrowth takes 60. But timberland re-use to country vacation home development has not been widely or wildly profitable, so the net value to the undeveloped land is still usually a small number.

First rule of thumb: trade level. If someone presents a value for a wholesale commodity based on its retail value, that may be bad or greedy.

More to follow: