Types of Expert Witnesses Used in Aurora Car Accidents

If you have been injured in a car accident, it is important that you consult a car accident lawyer. Following an accident, it is important that you begin to assemble your claim and help you establish the at-fault party’s liability. Your attorney can help put you in touch with a reputable expert witness that can help you validate your claim, while simultaneously working to disprove the defendant’s argument. If you want to know about which types of expert witnesses used in an Aurora car accident could benefit your case, consult a lawyer today.

Common Types of Expert Witnesses

Experienced motor vehicle attorneys may use a certain number of experts if liability is at issue in the case. For example, if the defendant tries to allege that the plaintiff should have been more careful, and tries to argue for comparative negligence, an expert witness can be quite helpful.

Generally, what the car accident attorney wants to do is hire an accident reconstructionist who can reconstruct the accident based on their lifetime of education in accident reconstruction and show that the plaintiff was not negligent, based on their reconstruction of events and their knowledge.

Other types of Aurora expert witnesses used in car accidents you want to bring in are a medical doctor who can do what is called an independent medical examination where they review all of the records, they do an examination of the plaintiff, and they can opine as to the reasonableness of the plaintiff’s treatment, the necessity of a plaintiff’s treatment, future treatment needs, and the costs of those future medical needs.

Non-Medical Expert Witnesses an Attorney Might Reach Out To

There are different types of expert witnesses used in Aurora car accidents. An attorney might retain the services of a functional capacity expert who will do an examination of the plaintiff and will testify as to what the plaintiff’s actual work capacity is a result of the collision. If for instance, they would be precluded from working in a heavy-lifting job now because of the accident, that is somebody that you want to always hire just to attest to the plaintiff’s inability to carry out the work that they used to do.

A lawyer may also want to reach out to an economic expert who will give an opinion as to the plaintiff’s lost wages but, more than that, they will opine as to future lost wages because a lot of them do not work in conjunction with the functional expert to say that an individual cannot do their job and may lose their potential earnings as a result. The expert witness may also include fringe benefits and everything that is not thought about when presenting a future lost wage claim. It is good to have those witnesses because more weight is given to their testimony.

Are Expert Witnesses Allowed to Know the Plaintiff?

Different types of expert witnesses used in Aurora car accidents are allowed to have existing relationships with the plaintiff and often do. A lot of times especially when looking at the plaintiff’s medical providers, there are two different sets of expert witnesses within Colorado and most courts; there is the retained expert and the non-retained expert. A non-retained expert, which is someone that the party has not paid to render an opinion. Just through their experience and education, they qualify as an expert and have knowledge of the case so a plaintiff’s medical providers are always someone who is considered an expert witness and does have an existing relationship.

They are one of the most beneficial witnesses to testify because they have been side by side with the plaintiff through this entire series of events. If the plaintiff has stayed with the same medical providers, they know how the plaintiff has progressed through their treatment and, if it is good progression or if it is bad progression or if there is some series of events that went from being good progression to bad progression, the medical provider that was treating the plaintiff will have the best knowledge of that.  If a person wants to know what types of expert witnesses used in Aurora car accidents might benefit their case most, they should consult a qualified attorney that can help.