In a quandry (PAH)

Dave Yates (PAH)

has asked me to testify in a soot damage trial where some contractor cleaned & tuned an oil boiler. Something wasn't right (he hasn't given me details yet) & the mechanic returned the next day to correct whatever the issue was. After he left, the home filled with soot & did $18,000.00 dollars damage.

Now, speaking strictly from my own perspective - that's why I pay such huge insurance premiums - in case we'd do something like this to a customer's home. No question we'd have immediately initiated a cure by submitting a claim and resolving the issue. (Ask me about the curtains we had to pay to be flown to CA for cleaning some time - been there, done that, but it wasn't soot - it was dust from the Civil War era & so were the curtains - seriously. If I remember clearly, the tab was something like 12K & I had just (the previous week) given my insurance agent a raking across the coals for how high my insurance bills were - in spite of having never made a claim. Talk about eating crow!)

Maybe we're nuts, but last week a HO called to say a valve we'd turned off & then back on at their water closet had dripped and stained his thread-bare carpeting. They've been customers for more than 30 years. I didn't even go look at it, I called a friend who has a carpet company & had it replaced. Seems like a no-brainer to me. Good will walks many miles.

Not this guy, evidently he told the HO to go pound sand! Naturally, the HO now wants to pound him into said sand. Enter the lawyers!

Don't see how I can refuse a friend, but I don't like the prospect of being bogged down in some nasty court case either.

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Don Walsh

Lawyers and sand

Speaking of lawyers.........
Do you know what you have when a lawyer is buried up to his chin in sand??




Not enough sand!

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leo g_13

hmmm,

not your field of expertise? seems like a toughy Dave, maybe when you get the whatsits' it will all be clear.

Leo G

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Maine doug

Given that your lawyer

friend will be billing the customer for every phone call, paper processed, conversation etc; if you get involved your entitled to the same. Do you have a different hourly rate for expert witness time? IMHO, time on this case should be as profitable as your normal work if not more since you may have lose a job by not being available.

Mark Eatherton1

Disincentive for being an expert witness...

I charge $350.00 per hour plus expenses to be their hired gun. If they don't like it, it's their perogative to go find someone else to put up with the BS they dish out.

Unfortunatley, many lawyers don't flinch at the hourly rate. I charge portal to portal (MINE), so if they want to send me out of state, and I have to sleep over, I charge the same rate (disincentive to long distance travel). That works out to $5.83/minute to sleep.

I realize that I'm contributing to the high cost of living, but I really don't want to do this kind of work, and if they want me, they'd better need me REAL bad.

Charge well, or expect numerous calls from other lawyers.

One of the expert witnesses I've worked with charges $1,000 per hour PLUS expenses, and he too charge from the time he leaves his home until he gets back. Makes me feel my charges are puny compared to his...

ME

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Unknown

Dave avoid it if you can

I am also like Mark asked often to be a witness. I put my price extremely high as I really do not want this kind of agravation.

I have been involved in one here locally now for five months and it is not even worth the money they pay. Some lawyers are really tough to get to understand mechanical things some times. So you spend hours training them so they can ask you the right questions.

Keep good track of your hours also as they sure do not and also keep any receipts for copying codes and the volumes of pare they sometimes want. They actually asked me one time to copy the National Fuel Gas Code. I just purchased them one and charged them for it.

Good luck, give me a call if you need any help, I have done it quite a few times.

Dave Yates (PAH)

thanks guys

I put the high pricing in front of them today & they didn't flinch! I thought sure they'd blanch & say no thanks. As I explained, my time will include all research, time ((including The Wall(G)) spent in conference and investigative on-site exploratory surgery.

Seems to me I remember there being an oil research facility in the Grand Caymans? About 100' down on the North Wall, where nature's beauty takes your breath away as you sail out over the abyss and suddenlt find you're hovering over a 6,000' deep ink-black sea.

If nothing else, I'm anxious to see what actually took place and review the work sheets that the discovery process will bring forth.

I told em I need to do my own combustion analysis and photograph the site. Good thing we just had our electronic combustion analysis equipment calibrated!

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Floyd_6

Good Luck!!!!!

You're gonna need it!!!!
Bet you'll learn a bunch.......


AND.....


Get paid well also!!!!!

Not a bad deal at all...

Floyd