June 8, 2010

Article: Witness Perception (Eyewitnesses Are Wrong 50% of the Time) 
Article: Storm Water Management: From Design to Disaster 
Meet the Expert:  Thomas Baker, P.E.  

Witness Perception (Eyewitnesses Are Wrong 50% of the Time)

Eyewitness identification is one of the most potent and effective tools available to police and prosecutors.  It is compelling, and time after time, it convinces juries of the defendant’s guilt or innocence.  The problem is, eyewitness identifications are WRONG at least 50 percent of the time according to truthjustice.org.  However, with the various scientific techniques available to our engineering experts, CED can help discover when an eyewitness may be mistaken.

Because people have preconceived ideas of how individuals should react in a given situation, many eyewitness accounts are inaccurate.  Unlike a video camera, people are not always exact in their reporting.  When accidents/incidents occur, witnesses often times state what they think should have happened rather than what really took place.

Perception can be unreliable as in the true story of a military man from New Orleans who, while walking through an airport in Japan, sees a man walking toward him.  The military man briefly thinks there is something familiar about the way the man walks but continues to proceed to his destination.  It was not until the approaching man speaks that the military man realizes it is his own father.  He never perceived meeting his father in Japan; therefore, he does not recognize him.

Another story involves three individuals riding in a vehicle who witnessed an accident.  All three accounts are different.  The accounts are impacted by each person’s position in the vehicle, visual angle to the accident, and the exact point in time they see the accident.  One person notices the position of the vehicles just prior to the accident.  The second witness sees the accident at the point of impact and the third witness sees it after impact.  Rather than actual facts, two accounts are based upon perception of where the vehicles must have started in order to end up where they do.

CED works on cases where witnesses give differing accounts of the accident/ incident or where individuals blatantly lie about their involvement in an accident.  Because eyewitness reports can be suspect, our engineers use experience and technical resources to help clients expose the truth through scientific methods.  For example, when investigating a vehicle hitting an individual the police report, photographs and witness statements are reviewed but CED also looks at the bruising on the victim to discover what features on the vehicle match the injuries.  With this information, our biomechanical engineer determines the position of the victim at the point of impact, giving our clients more scientific evidence at their disposal.

In various slip and fall cases, CED’s investigations proved the injuries could never occur the way the insured parties reported.  Our biomechanical engineers were able to demonstrate it was physically impossible to fall or obtain injuries as described.

In conclusion, in order to decrease the 50 percent chance of error in witness statements, when interviewing witnesses, the following steps are known to help obtain the facts (not perceptions):

1.     talk with the witness immediately after the accident/incident;
2.    speak with them privately in a quite location without the input of others;
3.    if possible, either video tape or use a digital recorder during the interview;
4.    do not lead the witness, let them tell the story in their own words;
5.    finally, have them write down their account of what happened.

Most importantly, after following the above suggestions, if witness statements still conflict, or you are not sure about the sequence of events, call CED to help determine what really happened.

Storm Water Management: From Design to Disaster

Hurricanes, El Niño, and excessive rain or snowmelt typically lead to excessive rainfall that ultimately collects and pools and contributes to flooding. Storm water is a term used to describe water that originates during precipitation events. It may also be used to apply to water that originates with snowmelt or runoff water from overwatering that enters the storm water system. Storm water that does not soak into the ground becomes surface runoff, which either flows directly into surface waterways or is channeled into storm sewers, which eventually discharge to surface waters. The proactive side of these types of disasters is the engineering discipline of storm water management.

Take for example a case involving a community maintained storm water management pond adjacent to a claimant homeowner's property. The case involved the role of the storm water pond in basement flooding, commencing more than 10 years after construction of the pond and the community homes.

One of CED’s civil engineers with experience in home construction/maintenance, storm water management, and flood damage/mitigation, investigated the matter.  Of particular concern was the fact that the client’s basement was flooding, while an adjacent homeowner’s basement was not.  CED inspected the site and evaluated the as built drawings.  Also evaluated, were the vertical separation between the pond and the two homes in light of local standards for storm water management design.  The engineer concluded that while both homes were designed with the same basement finished floor elevation, the as-built condition of the basement floor of the non-flooding property was one foot higher than the flooding property.  In addition, the weir (overflow-type dam commonly used to raise the level of a pond) elevation of the pond was level with the finished floor elevation of the flooding basement.  As the stone weir of the pond silted up over the years, storm water was held up to the elevation of the homeowner’s basement floor, leading to flooding.

Engineers with storm water management expertise are trained in managing the following aspects of its effects;  control of flooding and erosion, managing and controlling hazardous materials to prevent release of pollutants into the environment, building 'soft' structures such as ponds, swales, or wetland to work with existing 'hard' drainage structures, such as pipes and concrete channels, planning and constructing storm water systems so contaminants are removed before they pollute surface waters or groundwater resources. CED's Construction group investigates claims and litigation stemming from flooding resulting from all of the above.

Meet the Expert: Thomas Baker, P.E.

Thomas Baker, P.E., is one of CED's knowledgeable experts in Mechanical Engineering. Mr. Baker is able to bring his extensive manufacturing and product design experience to bear in his product liability cases. On his many premise liability cases he utilizes his Bachelor of Science degrees in Physics from Jacksonville University and Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech.

After graduation, Mr. Baker's work as a manufacturing engineer, contract field engineer, product engineer and engineering manager laid a solid foundation and breadth of knowledge which he brings to his work today. His work as a product development engineer for Hunter Fans is instrumental in his understanding of both the manufacturing process and the do's and don'ts of product design. This background also ensures that Mr. Baker is well versed in safety requirements, safety standards and safety practices in the operational and manufacturing workspace. 

Mr. Baker is a certified engineer and has years of experience using the English XL Variable Incidence Tribometer for slip and fall investigations. He has examined “Slip & Fall” scenes in nearly every environment including: Docks, Cruise ships, Airports, Restaurants, Construction sites, Hotels, Shopping Malls and Private Residences. Code compliance, safety standards and industry practices are incorporated into each investigation.

For more information on Mr. Baker and other CED experts please contact one of our case managers at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it '; document.write( '' ); document.write( addy_text79560 ); document.write( '<\/a>' ); //-->\n This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or on the web at www.cedtechnologies.com .