Personal Injury Law

Cross Examining Insurance Company's Medical Expert

Paul Luvera provides a really good outline on cross examining experts on bias.

Our firm has spent a lot of time, effort and energy trying to be able to effectively use this outline by getting the answers to the question defense experts sedulously avoid: how much do you make testifying in accident cases and how much have you made from this law firm/insurance company?

I think we have fought this issue as hard as anyone in Maryland, recently getting a helpful Maryland Court of Appeals opinion that makes more clear what Maryland law is on the scope of the expert's obligation to produce financial records.

I know a lot of insurance defense lawyers in Maryland think we do this to harass their experts. I get why they think this. There is too much gamesmanship in Maryland accident cases between plaintiffs' accident lawyers and the insurance companies. Both sides are guilty of this. But with this expert issue, the reality is that jurors do care more about bias then they do the doctor's pedigree. We care about this issue so much because we think it makes a difference to jurors.

This does not mean that jurors think or even I think that because an expert makes a large amount of money for testifying it means that the expert is lying. I think there are some experts - including some defense experts - who testify regularly and still shoot straight. But let's not kid ourselves either: there are a lot of frequent flyer experts whose opinions are colored by who is paying them.

• Cross examining defense experts: ideas on cross examination (includes an interesting comment by a well respected Maryland doctor on the issue of whether gross income is relevant)
• Response to motion for protective order
• Falik v. Hornage (2010 Maryland Court of Appeals Case)
• LawyersUSA Article on IMEs (with quotes from me)
• Outline for Cross of Defendant's Expert in an Accident Case
• Sample Cross of IME Doctor

Full post as published by Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog on June 23, 2010 (boomark / email).