Witness Testimony in Chicago Personal Injury Cases

Chicago personal injury claims rely on Illinois state law. Under Illinois personal injury law, few forms of evidence are as persuasive as witness testimony. An eyewitness might describe how a truck accident occurred, for example, while an expert witness might describe the same accident using skid marks and photographs. Personal injury lawyers who locate witnesses and use them effectively can give their clients an advantage in the courtroom.

Types of witnesses

Illinois law relies on two key types of witnesses: eyewitnesses and expert witnesses.

The role of eyewitnesses

The job of an eyewitness is to talk about what they have personally seen and heard. Generally speaking, their job is not to offer opinions or conclusions. An eyewitness cannot say, for example, “The defendant was negligent” or “His blood alcohol content exceeded 0.08.”

The role of expert witnesses

Expert witnesses do not witness the accident or cause of the injury. Instead, they rely on specialized expertise to state their expert opinions on issues that require their expertise.  An expert witness might say, for example, “The victim suffered a herniated disc in the accident.”

Note that the injured person’s treating doctors may serve as both fact and expert witnesses. Their testimony may include observations during treatment as well as medical opinions.

Where to find witnesses

Below are some ideas for finding witnesses who might help you establish your claim:

• Good Samaritans at the scene of a car accident
• Police officers responding to a truck accident
• Police reports (you normally can’t use police reports in court, but they can help you identify witnesses)
• Vehicle passengers who were involved in a car accident
• Video camera footage from automobile dashcams and nearby security cameras
• Talking to co-workers or employees, who might have witnessed a dangerous condition that led to a slip and fall accident, for example
• Door-to-door canvassing, if the accident occurred in a residential area

Your lawyer might have an investigator skilled in locating witnesses. An experienced personal injury lawyer should certainly have cultivated skill in interviewing them.

Vetting eyewitnesses

It is not a good strategy to automatically call every witness you have. Some can hurt you more than help you. Here are some factors you need to take into account.

• Positioning: Was the witness located in a physical position that would allow them to see or hear the events they will testify about?
• Bias: A relative of yours might be easy to discredit, for example. A friend of the defendant is particularly credible, by contrast, if they reluctantly offer testimony that is unfavorable to the defendant.
• Consistency: Does their story match the narrative you have pieced together from other evidence?
• Communication skills: Are they articulate? Can they handle themselves under cross-examination?
• Memory: How much time has passed between the event in question and the witness’s testimony?

In some cases, a single credible witness can win your case.

Preparing eyewitnesses for trial

Take the following actions to maximize the value of your witnesses:

• Thoroughly interview them.
• Have the witnesses you want to use sign an affidavit. Although a witness affidavit is not admissible in court under most circumstances, it can provide leverage in settlement negotiations.
• If you file a lawsuit, cross-examine the opposing party’s witnesses and keep a record of their answers in case they say something inconsistent at trial.
• If a trial is looming, preparation will include examining and cross-examining your own witnesses in private so they can know what they might face at trial. “Examine” means questioning them as a friendly witness, while “cross-examine” means to question them as a hostile witness. This practice can help them testify clearly and consistently.

All of this can represent a lot of work or stress for a witness, You might need to issue a subpoena to compel them to testify.

Expert witnesses

An expert witness testifies on matters that are normally beyond the ability of a jury to decide due to a lack of expertise in the subject matter.

The expert witness industry

Many people work full-time as expert witnesses, in part because the pay often exceeds the amount they were earning in their specialty. A physician, for example, might make more money testifying than practicing medicine. An experienced Chicago personal injury lawyer will maintain strong relationships with credible expert witnesses.

If the defendant is not calling any expert witnesses themselves, they might try to discredit your expert witnesses by noting that you paid them to testify. The idea is that their testimony might be biased in favor of the party paying them. In actual practice, however, juries accept paid testimony as a normal and natural incident of establishing a personal injury claim.

Types of expert witnesses

Following is a very abbreviated list of some of the most commonly used types of expert witnesses:

• Medical experts
• Accident reconstruction specialists
• Engineering experts
• Vocational retraining experts
• Economics experts
• Psychology experts

Many other types of experts are used in various personal injury cases.

Qualifying your expert witness in Illinois

A court will not accept just anyone as an expert. It is up to the party who calls a witness to prove that they are qualified. Generally, an expert must possess sufficient education, training, certification, experience, and (preferably) publications or teaching. The exact nature of the necessary qualifications depends on the field of expertise. An expert in martial arts, for example, probably wouldn’t need a PhD, but a chemist probably would.

Qualifying testimony

A court will limit the testimony of even a qualified expert. In other words, it is not enough to have an expert — the testimony itself must qualify. Rule 702 of the Illinois Rules of Evidence provides the standards:

• Can the expert’s technique or theory be tested and assessed for reliability?
• Has the technique or theory been subject to peer review and publication?
• What is the known or potential rate of error of the technique or theory?
• Has the technique or theory been generally accepted in the scientific community?
• Do standards exist that control its operation?

This standard is consistent with the federal Daubert standard.

Remember that you can use expert affidavits during settlement negotiations. If the expert’s testimony would not be admissible in court, however, it is unlikely to be persuasive in settlement negotiations.

A seasoned Chicago personal injury lawyer can help you gather the witness testimony you need to win

Witness testimony could make or break your claim. Although you could try to handle your claim on your own, your chances of winning a generous settlement are better with a Chicago personal injury lawyer than without one. Gainsberg Injury and Accident Lawyers is a Chicago personal injury law firm with extensive experience handling claims that require witness testimony. We work on contingency, so we don’t get paid unless you win your claim, either in court or at the settlement table.  Contact us today for a free case review.