Insurance Claims and Bad Faith Law Blog

Expert Witnesses Testifying on Reasonable Conduct, Other Financial/Law Issues.

    Do you pay your Expert Witnesses $1,000 an hour?  Summaries in the newspapers of recent studies reflect that Expert Witnesses often charge that much.  Here is a handy link here.  This report uses many of the studies as resources.

    It is interesting that in 1 out of 3 lawsuits, Expert Witnesses testify at Trial in Federal Court about the "reasonableness of a party's actions" and other "business/law/financial" issues, as reported by studies of Federal Civil Trials and surveys of Federal Trial Judges across the nation.  More such issues are likely to be presented as the financial crisis deepens.

Please Read The Disclaimer.

Federal Regulatory Rules Out for Comment.

     The Office of Thrift Supervision issued proposed rules curbing some "deceptive and unfair practices" on some credit card fees and practices.  See for example Kathy M. Kristof, "Proposed Rules Seek to Bar Some Rate Hikes by Credit Card Firms" (Los Angeles Times Online, Friday, May 2, 2008).  Reportedly, the same rule changes will also be proposed by the Federal Reserve Board and by something called the National Credit Union Administration.

     One of the proposed rules would bar some retroactive interest rate hikes.  One person testified before Congress that she had never made a late payment and had never gone over her limit -- sound familiar to anyone? -- yet her credit card company charged her 24.99% interest because, she testified, the credit card company thought that her credit card balance was  "too high".

     Another proposed rule would impose limits on when a credit card company that mails out its statements late, and then charges a late fee to the consumer because the payment is late  -- how about this sounding familiar to anyone?   Under a newly proposed rule, credit card companies would have not less than 21 days to mail or deliver their statements to their credit card holders before the due date.

     It is reported that there will be a public comment period of 75 days.  It is "anticipated" that the proposed rules will be adopted before 2009.

Please Read The Disclaimer.