Know Your Stuff

To be successful as an expert witness one needs to be prepared. I have been up against expert witnesses that were not prepared. At trial it caused major issues for the opposing side. The case involved a training accident and a concept called nozzle reaction. Nozzle reaction is describes as “The force of nature that makes the nozzle move in the opposite direction of the water flow.” The nozzle operator failed to counteract the thrust exerted by the nozzle in order to maintain control and was injured. The expert on the other side maintained that psi for the nozzle reaction was over 150psi. That was his guess. He didn’t realize that there is a formula to figure the psi of nozzle pressure. He was embarrassed when I pointed out that according to the hydraulic formula the psi for that nozzle was only 45psi.