Wrongful Death Expert Witnesses
A wrongful death claim rarely ends with the underlying verdict or settlement; for corporate defendants and their insurers, it often begins a second round of commercial litigation over who ultimately bears the loss. Component manufacturers seek indemnity from raw material suppliers, equipment owners pursue contribution from designers and maintenance contractors, hospitals look to staffing agencies, and insurers and reinsurers dispute coverage and the allocation of large settlements across policy years. These matters also raise the threshold question of how much the underlying claim was actually worth, since inflated or poorly supported economic loss figures can distort settlement value and every downstream allocation. The central issues are therefore causation among multiple commercial actors and the defensibility of the damages being shifted between them.
Expert analysis in these matters proceeds on two tracks that must ultimately fit together. Technical experts, from failure analysts and engineers to quality and credentialing specialists, determine which party's product, service, or omission actually caused the fatal event, often by testing retained components or auditing maintenance, inspection, and verification records. Forensic economists and actuaries then evaluate the economic loss itself, examining lost earnings and benefits, household services, personal consumption deductions, and present-value assumptions to determine whether a settlement or verdict was reasonable and how it should be apportioned. Together, that work supports indemnification, contribution, and coverage positions, and equips counsel to rebut an opposing expert whose causation theory or economic model rests on unsupported assumptions.
Because wrongful death disputes between commercial parties combine liability engineering, insurance practice, and economic valuation, the right expert team depends on which of those questions will decide the case. The forensic economists we present have testified dozens of times on lost earnings, business interruption, and damages modeling, and include specialists who have published on personal consumption tables, occupational attainment, and the investment approach in forensic economics. They are joined by an actuary with 45 years of experience in pension and life valuation and by health economists who have testified on managed care contracting and damages estimation. Round Table Group has completed more than 75,000 expert searches for litigators, and we can help you assemble the technical and economic experts your indemnity, contribution, or coverage dispute requires. Let us help you get started by calling us at (202) 908-4500.
