As you are building your personal injury case, you may wonder if your case could benefit from expert witnesses. Succeeding in a personal injury case means proving negligence, which means showing the other party breached their duty of care and caused your injuries.
Proving negligence often depends on the strength of your evidence showing the cause of the accident, your injuries and your financial losses. You may need one or more experts in various professions to help prove your case.
Lay witnesses versus expert witnesses
Lay witnesses are common to personal injury cases. Lay witnesses testify about something they saw, heard or did that is relevant to the case.
In contrast, expert witnesses have specialized knowledge, experience, skills, education or training in a specific area. This qualifies them to provide an opinion on certain aspects of the personal injury case, such as the cause of an accident or impact of an injury.
There are many types of expert witnesses that can be valuable in a New Jersey personal injury case. Here are some examples.
Accident reconstruction and economic experts
Accident reconstruction experts use various technologies to determine the precise cause of an accident. They may use devices that demonstrate how fast vehicles were going at the time of a car accident or how a body is specifically injured based on the type of impact.
Part of proving negligence is establishing your damages, which can be economic or non-economic. The role of an economic expert is to explain how your injuries have affected you financially and how they will continue to affect you financially in the future.
An economic expert can testify about your medical expenses for past and future treatments and predict how much money in lost wages you will suffer because your injuries prevent you from working. They can also perform calculations and predict your long-term medical costs due to your injuries.
Vocational rehabilitation experts
Many accident victims cannot work because of their injuries and some are forced to give up a lucrative career. A vocational rehabilitation expert can testify about the types of work you could perform before and after the accident.
This type of testimony can go beyond physical injuries. Vocational rehabilitation experts may testify on both physical and mental limitations that prevent you from performing specific types of work.
For example, if driving was a major part of your job prior to your accident, extreme anxiety could prevent you from getting behind the wheel of a car after the accident. This could mean you are forced to give up a job you previously enjoyed and take a lower paying job.
A vocational rehabilitation expert could testify about the cost of mental health treatment you must undergo to overcome your anxiety.
Mental health experts
A mental health expert could also be helpful in this type of situation. This type of expert can testify about how the accident has impacted you mentally and emotionally, causing you psychological distress. A mental health expert is extremely valuable if you are requesting compensation for emotional distress or pain and suffering.
Expert witnesses play a crucial role in personal injury cases. However, you must choose the right experts to prove your case. This requires extensive research and analysis.
Once you have identified your experts, you must thoroughly prepare them to testify on your behalf. Expert witnesses can have a huge impact on a judge or jury’s understanding of the accident and its effect on your life.
