Agree...there's not as much liability in this work as in other aspects. Not completely liability free, but it's close. About 75% of my business is litigation related, either evaluative or expert witness work.
I would suggest that the largest liability is your professional reputation. Our firm is frequently retained for construction claims. Our philosophy is that our professional opinion is not for sale. We review many claims and disagree with the position of the lawyers, contractors, or engineers. At times we are retrained to play "devil's advocate". But our position will not change for any fee. We will not ignore or omit significant factors in our report.
I know many "expert witness" engineers that support any client's position. This reputation is what I consider the liability.
If an expert witness gives evidence in court which harms or damages another party, then if that evidence is later found to be unskilled or incompetent, I believe that the expert witness may be found liable for damages.
BA and CG...you are both correct. As for the reputation, an expert witness should never be an advocate for his client. His evaluation and opinions should be independent of the legal outcome of an issue. As CG noted, some experts don't get this and their opinion becomes "for sale". If their answer changes with the wind, they are ultimately blown away!
This makes me think of a case I almost got involved in.
A contractor friend of mine wanted me to look at a shingle installation on a very expensive home ($750K range). My experience here was more as a builder than a structural engineer. The homeowner was having problems with condensation on attic or "bonus room" windows. The space was unfinished with insulation in the rafter space. The homeowner hired a "forensic roofing engineer". I could not help but laugh when I heard this title. This "engineer" claimed that a poor shingle installation job was to blame for the condensation on the attic windows. The shingle job looked fine to me and I have personally worked on 100's of roof jobs.
The elephant in the room, or attic in this case, was a air handler unit that most certainly had some shoddy leaking duct work.
Anyone ever heard of a "forensic roofing engineer"?
I have done a few of these and have rejected a few. I find that some times the lawyers seem to be "milking" clients for billable hours. That however is a discussion for another day.
That said, some states seem to be imposing a "ruling" that you must be registered in their state in order to testify. Seems I heard of a complaint filed against a VERY competent engineer in the field being questioned - but he crossed over the state line by a few miles and someone filed a complaint. I believe he was giving a verval warning by the local state board not to do this aain. Does not quite make sense to me - but.....
Well, MiketheEngineer, those are the rules of the ballgame. In Canada, we have the same situation. If you define giving expert evidence in court as the practice of engineering, then registration in the applicable jurisdiction (state or province) is a necessary legal requirement.
TJ....the term "Forensic Engineer" with whatever specialty it might entail, has most often been thrust upon us by lawyers. It is a carry-over from other forensic sciences that they deal with. Over the past few years, the term "forensic" has been routinely applied to what I've been doing for over 30 years...failure investigations.
Forensic engineering is not a discipline...it is a designation. As for a "Forensic Roofing Engineer", it is not an uncommon designation. The difficulty is determining whether the individual is actually qualified to offer opinions on roofing materials and application, since there is no discipline of "Roof Engineering". Most roof consultants, legitimate or otherwise, get involved in roof investigations. It is a common part of re-design, but there's not always a need to determine cause of failure or assess blame for the failure. Sounds like you got tied to one that was clueless.
Even though the forensic term gets applied routinely to what I do, I'm not so sure I particularly like it, although it seems to have more ready recognition than trying to describe what a failure investigation is. In some respects its like the term "Expert Witness"...are you a witness who has subject expertise or are you an expert at being a witness?
I'm a consulting engineer first and foremost. My specialty is determining why things break, why they fall apart, or why they don't perform as designed or intended. I routinely serve as an "expert" in my areas of practice (structures and construction materials). I feel compelled follow accepted standards of conduct (ASTM has some guidelines, as well as some of the engineering societies), and practice in an ethical manner as an engineer. I hope others do also.
Ron-
What alarmed me about this fellow was that he claimed that the shingles "were installed without regard to the prevailing weather direction". I asked it were the ridge cap shingles he was referring to as I always made sure to install cap shingles in the right direction on my own roof jobs based on prevailing winds. He told me "no, the regular field shingles were not install in the right direction". As I mention before, I myself have installed 100's of roofs. I cannot think of any way whatsoever to install three-tab or dimensional shingles backwards unless they were literally upside down or sideways on the roof. They are installed left to right or right to left and which way changes nothing.
Moreover, the roof was 100% leak free yet he claimed that the moisture in the attic was from improper shingle installation.
TJ...sounds like he's an idiot. That's unfortunate that he claims to be an engineer but doesn't know much. I see them occasionally as well.
There's no reasonable way to accommodate prevailing winds in the application of shingles, nor should there be. It isn't the prevailing winds that are problematic...it's the code-level design winds that tear off the shingles (actually they won't withstand code-level winds in our area). Almost any wind over 60 mph can cause some shingle damage.
If you put the ridge cap on opposite the prevailing wind on one house, and the house across the street is skewed relative to your house by 30 to 90 degrees, which way do you install the ridge cap?...doesn't matter. Same with the field shingles...right to left, left to right...who cares.
BARetired and all... I haven't checked with the professional associations, but have been involved with several court cases... It may depend on the various jurisdictions, but, it's the judge that determines if a witness is 'expert' in many areas... technical people can be experts if they have adequate credentials.
The judge will do his best, but he is usually not capable of determining the expertise of a witness. In the past, there have been witnesses having credentials who were subsequently found to be incompetent.
There is nothing to stop a judge from accepting testimony from an incompetent expert. After all, they allow incompetent lawyers into their court quite frequently.
For those that have done it before, would you recommend being an expert witness?
It seems like it would be interesting and particular valuable to get a feel for what to expect if you were ever directly involved a lawsuit. Also, I'd imagine it can be profitable as well.
The problems, or negative effects, I've had in serving as an expert witness are:
1. The cases come up rather suddenly, interfering with your other work.
2. The cases come up randomly and at least in my neck of the woods, aren't all that prevailent. Doing what Ron does, I think, takes a bit of long term effort to build up clients (attorneys?) to base a practice on it.
3. If you are first and foremost a consulting engineer, serving clients in the community, and you do forensic engineering/expert witness testimony as a side market, you many times find that you get in situations where you are on the other side of a case from a client, or friend. Makes for awkward situations and might possibly damage relationships you have with clients.
4. Your analyses, calculations, testimonies, etc. all have to be very very good as they will be scrutinized rather carefully. This isn't bad in itself, just does get your blood pressure and stress up when you properly think about it.
Some good points:
1. Higher hourly rates are usually charged for services in this area, especially higher during depositions, court appearances.
2. Lower risk as you aren't designing anything but rather rendering engineering opinions on the behavior of others.
3. Interesting problems. Every time I've done expert witnessing the issues, designs, construction, contractual relationships, ethical engineering questions, etc. are all very interesting and teach me a lot.
