{"id":2636,"date":"2013-12-16T10:00:52","date_gmt":"2013-12-16T16:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/injury.robertkreisman.com\/?p=2636"},"modified":"2013-12-16T07:44:22","modified_gmt":"2013-12-16T13:44:22","slug":"illinois-law-experts-role-testifying-reasonable-certainty-probably-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robertkreisman.com\/injury-lawyer\/illinois-law-experts-role-testifying-reasonable-certainty-probably-true\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois Law and the Expert\u2019s Role in Testifying: \u201cReasonable Certainty\u201d and \u201cMore Probably True\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

For as long as I have been practicing law, now 37 years, the question an expert must always be asked is whether his or her opinion is to a reasonable degree of certainty.\u00a0<\/span>Once that question is answered in the affirmative, the burden for the offering expert is whether the opinion that is about to be given improving the strength of the expert witness\u2019s opinion is more probably true than not.\u00a0<\/span>That second question must be answered affirmatively as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In a recent deposition of one of my experts, one of the defendants\u2019 lawyers spent a great deal of time badgering the witness about what she believed the term reasonable degree of medical certainty means since it was stated in that fashion in her written opinions.\u00a0<\/span>The answer went something like this:\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cI have never been asked this before.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>The defense counsel argued with the witness, saying that she did not correctly state what he said was the \u201ctest in Illinois,\u201d for reasonable certainty.\u00a0 <\/span>I am not aware of any law that requires an expert to define what reasonable certainty means before answering, since it is a set of words that are understandable on their face.\u00a0<\/span>This witness testified that she believed it was more probably true than not that the injury suffered by the plaintiff was caused by the negligence of the defendants.<\/p>\n

To dig deeper in this, \u201creasonable certainty\u201d is a statement that the opinion is not a guess or speculation, but the product of some scientific method or from the education, background and experience of the expert.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For as long as I have been practicing law, now 37 years, the question an expert must always be asked is whether his or her opinion is to a reasonable degree of certainty.\u00a0Once that question is answered in the affirmative, the burden for the offering expert is whether the opinion that is about to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":795,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[46,30,22,71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-procedure","category-experts","category-illinois-civil-procedure","category-jury-instructions"],"yoast_head":"\nIllinois Law and the Expert\u2019s Role in Testifying: \u201cReasonable Certainty\u201d and \u201cMore Probably True\u201d — Chicago Injury Lawyer Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For as long as I have been practicing law, now 37 years, the question an expert 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