bertsmobile1
Lawn Royalty
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2014
- Threads
- 65
- Messages
- 24,995
Beat a lawer more than once about mechanical work.
Most don't know which side of a screwdriver you hold.
They tried to stitch me up twice over vehicle failures.
Way way back in a previous life I sub-contracted to a lecturer who had a contract to provide forensic evidence about metal failure.
It was a real eye opener, but taught me about keeping records and being methodical.
Probably gave "expert" evidence more than 100 times
It also taught me to be calm and ask for clarification when they start asking ambigious questions.
This throws them right off balance as dose beginning with "It is not nor can ever be a yes / no situation- I can not give a truthful and accurate reply to such an open question "
Or " The question you ask shows an extreamly poor knowledge of the physics/ engineering principles involved and any answer given would be inconclusive could you please reformat it in an engineering / scientific correct mannar so as to enlighten the court rather than create confusion ".
And yes I have been cautioned by judges on many occasions.
Even better is when they tried to challenge my qualifications.
Not one of them had ever bothered to check what was in the sylibus .
The killer was " in simester 3 we studied statistics in order to understand what is & is not a statistically representative of a population with works out at 1472 samples to be 99.9% certain that the sample you are testing is representative of the entire population so I could not possibly make any comment of your independant testing contradiciting my findings on the evidence based on such a small sample size.
I could not remember how many times I have trotted that one out in courts.
You have to remind the judge that it is a matter of technical competiantce and not the law.
So if the defendant has done everything that is in the manual he can not be negligent regardless of legal precident as he is a skilled technician following the instructions given by the manufacturers and any liability in shortcomings lies with the company who wrote the instruction you were following
Down here the plaintif has to prove negligence.
When I was in the hot seat I took my tools into court to be admitted as evidence , along with the service record of the vehicles and the service manuals.
I even invited the prosecution to have my tools independantly certified after reminding them that only tools used in specific situations ( aerospace-elevators-cranes-etc etc etc) are legally required to be certified
The judge actually took them into chambers and examined them and noted in his summing up ( in my favour) that were evidently well & regularly used.
My refusal to recall any torque figures simply stating that "it is high so I use the big wrench or it is a 6" wrench job after I check the manual because there are so many it is too easy to get confussed if you try to remember them all " ?
The judge summed that up as prudent & cautious.
Because I always worked alone on our vehicles there was no one to contradict my testimony , and that was very important.
When I do repairs with a customer observing I always exagerate things like tensioning like doing up bolts that are only at 14 ft lbs in 3 stages then checking the final tightening, the blades are always taken from a sealed package including new bolts ( swing back blades ) and I always check the tension figures in my parts catalogue so the customer sees all this happen. I have a big bin full of perfectly good used bolts and reciepts for selling the same as certified scrap to back up my side.
Threatening to call over 100 witnesses who will testify they they observed me fitting new bolts with a tension wrench usually blows any chance of questioning my proceedures right out of the water.
I did get fined once when a lawer was badgering me for quick answers and I responded with a "what are you in such a hurry for . you charge more per second in this court that I make in a year so the longer I take to ensure I give a truthful and accurate answer the more money you can extract from your client ".
That cost me $ 250, but I won the case against a QC so I did not really care.
Most don't know which side of a screwdriver you hold.
They tried to stitch me up twice over vehicle failures.
Way way back in a previous life I sub-contracted to a lecturer who had a contract to provide forensic evidence about metal failure.
It was a real eye opener, but taught me about keeping records and being methodical.
Probably gave "expert" evidence more than 100 times
It also taught me to be calm and ask for clarification when they start asking ambigious questions.
This throws them right off balance as dose beginning with "It is not nor can ever be a yes / no situation- I can not give a truthful and accurate reply to such an open question "
Or " The question you ask shows an extreamly poor knowledge of the physics/ engineering principles involved and any answer given would be inconclusive could you please reformat it in an engineering / scientific correct mannar so as to enlighten the court rather than create confusion ".
And yes I have been cautioned by judges on many occasions.
Even better is when they tried to challenge my qualifications.
Not one of them had ever bothered to check what was in the sylibus .
The killer was " in simester 3 we studied statistics in order to understand what is & is not a statistically representative of a population with works out at 1472 samples to be 99.9% certain that the sample you are testing is representative of the entire population so I could not possibly make any comment of your independant testing contradiciting my findings on the evidence based on such a small sample size.
I could not remember how many times I have trotted that one out in courts.
You have to remind the judge that it is a matter of technical competiantce and not the law.
So if the defendant has done everything that is in the manual he can not be negligent regardless of legal precident as he is a skilled technician following the instructions given by the manufacturers and any liability in shortcomings lies with the company who wrote the instruction you were following
Down here the plaintif has to prove negligence.
When I was in the hot seat I took my tools into court to be admitted as evidence , along with the service record of the vehicles and the service manuals.
I even invited the prosecution to have my tools independantly certified after reminding them that only tools used in specific situations ( aerospace-elevators-cranes-etc etc etc) are legally required to be certified
The judge actually took them into chambers and examined them and noted in his summing up ( in my favour) that were evidently well & regularly used.
My refusal to recall any torque figures simply stating that "it is high so I use the big wrench or it is a 6" wrench job after I check the manual because there are so many it is too easy to get confussed if you try to remember them all " ?
The judge summed that up as prudent & cautious.
Because I always worked alone on our vehicles there was no one to contradict my testimony , and that was very important.
When I do repairs with a customer observing I always exagerate things like tensioning like doing up bolts that are only at 14 ft lbs in 3 stages then checking the final tightening, the blades are always taken from a sealed package including new bolts ( swing back blades ) and I always check the tension figures in my parts catalogue so the customer sees all this happen. I have a big bin full of perfectly good used bolts and reciepts for selling the same as certified scrap to back up my side.
Threatening to call over 100 witnesses who will testify they they observed me fitting new bolts with a tension wrench usually blows any chance of questioning my proceedures right out of the water.
I did get fined once when a lawer was badgering me for quick answers and I responded with a "what are you in such a hurry for . you charge more per second in this court that I make in a year so the longer I take to ensure I give a truthful and accurate answer the more money you can extract from your client ".
That cost me $ 250, but I won the case against a QC so I did not really care.