{"id":2928,"date":"2014-07-22T11:58:35","date_gmt":"2014-07-22T11:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/?p=2928"},"modified":"2022-09-26T17:20:57","modified_gmt":"2022-09-26T20:20:57","slug":"would-i-be-perceived-as-biased","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/22\/would-i-be-perceived-as-biased\/","title":{"rendered":"Would I be perceived as biased?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Would I be\u00a0perceived\u00a0as biased if I told counsel about literature that discusses both the technical and non-technical issues – including legal issues<\/em>, of a problem in the built environment?<\/p>\n

A while ago, I was\u00a0assessing the state-of-the-art\u00a0of a science relevant to a case I’m working on.\u00a0 I was\u00a0interested in the factors affecting the test results of a material property.\u00a0 Also the\u00a0current understanding in science of this property and it’s determination.<\/p>\n

I was\u00a0also interested in\u00a0the development of various devices over the years to test\/measure this material.\u00a0 And\u00a0the accuracy and reliability of\u00a0devices on the market today.<\/p>\n

For me, it was all about the science and forensic engineering.<\/p>\n

I was surprised in reviewing\u00a0a technically, very up-to-date piece of literature on this material property to find it also addressing the interests of owners – and litigators who might be acting on their behalf, in connection with problems to do with such a material.\u00a0 This literature was current and treated both technical and non-technical issues very comprehensively.<\/p>\n

I was also surprised to\u00a0find in a more dated piece of literature\u00a0that it\u00a0was all\u00a0about the interests of the property owners, the users of the property,\u00a0and their counsel – and very little about the technical issues.\u00a0 The title\u00a0and abstract had misled me.<\/p>\n

So, here\u00a0was very informative literature\u00a0in which\u00a0the parties involved in the case I was\u00a0working on would be quite interested.\u00a0 And possibly the insight gained would resolve the dispute earlier.<\/p>\n

My role in this case\u00a0was to serve the justice system with reliable technical data and an explanation of this data, and to do this in an unbiased, objective manner.\u00a0 Counsel’s role is to\u00a0serve the best interests\u00a0of their client.<\/p>\n

In a perfect world I should be able to inform all parties about this literature.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure what would have happened if I had informed my party, and so I hesitated.\u00a0 If I informed\u00a0counsel and\u00a0the information\u00a0was\u00a0not distributed\u00a0would I be perceived as biased?<\/p>\n

If I\u00a0refrained and waited until I was\u00a0instructed to draft a report on the matter then I\u00a0would reference the literature as a matter of course.\u00a0 That would seem to solve such a\u00a0problem because a report is\u00a0not usually requested by counsel unless they are comfortable distributing it.\u00a0 Maybe there\u00a0was no\u00a0question about bias.<\/p>\n

But still, it`s an interesting question: “Would the expert be perceived as biased if he told counsel about literature of considerable legal interest and little or no technical interest?”<\/p>\n

(Posted by Eric E. Jorden, M.Sc., P.Eng. Consulting Professional Engineer, Forensic Engineer, Geotechnology Ltd., Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. July 14, 2014 ejorden@eastlink.ca<\/span><\/strong>)\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Would I be\u00a0perceived\u00a0as biased if I told counsel about literature that discusses both the technical and non-technical issues – including legal issues, of a problem in the built environment? A while ago, I was\u00a0assessing the state-of-the-art\u00a0of a science relevant to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,16,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2928"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10344,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions\/10344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}