The New Jersey Appellate Division is cracking down on a practice it referred to as “improper bootstrapping,” in which lawyers in personal injury cases get experts to testify at trial about opinions held by other experts who are not called to the stand.
In a precedential opinion issued March 25 in James v. Ruiz, an appeals panel led by Presiding Judge Jack Sabatino prohibited lawyers from asking an expert witness at a civil trial whether that expert’s findings are consistent with those of a nontestifying expert, “where the manifest purpose of those questions is to have the jury consider for their truth the absent expert’s hearsay opinions about complex and disputed matters.”
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