TBI attorney Steve Gursten shares strategies for effective cross examination of the defense’s IME and expert witnesses in auto accident injury cases
I will be speaking on “How to conduct an effective cross examination of an expert witness in an auto TBI case,” at the Legal Latitudes legal seminar, “Frontiers in Advocacy: Traumatic Brain Injury,” in Nashville, Tennessee, from May 6th through May 8th.
“Cross-examination is the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.” (John H. Wigmore, quoted in Lilly v. Virginia, 527 U.S. 116 (1999))
Today, this is more needed than ever before. Defense experts, to state it quite plainly, lie. They lie all the time. And cross examination is the best weapon we have for protecting and defending car accident victims with traumatic brain injury from the harm that can be done by insurance-companies’ hired-gun IME doctors and expert forensic witnesses.
The topics I will discuss at my presentation include:
- My top 4 favorite questions to ask a defense expert about telling the truth, being biased and how the jury should view a biased witness.
- The undeniable value of record/videotaping a defense IME doctor’s examination of a car accident or personal injury victim to document whether all the necessary and relevant tests were done, whether they were done correctly and, most importantly, whether the victim’s statements and actions were consistent with what insurance company’s “hired-gun” said they were.
- Effective, straight-forward strategies for cutting through the lies on cross examination of doctors and witnesses who will refuse to acknowledge basic truths.
- Using the “Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus” principle (“He who speaks falsely on one point will speak falsely upon all”) to demonstrate that, rather than telling the “whole truth” and nothing but the truth, the expert has been deliberately telling “half truths” to deceive the judge and jury.
