Area architecture, engineering firms' expertise brought out in lawsuits, court

When litigation requires scientific, technical or engineering expertise, attorneys often contact architecture and engineering firms for litigation support.

Kevin Skibiski, civil engineer and associate with Heideman Associ-ates Inc., said firms are sometimes called on to determine the cause of structural or foundation failure, or other engineering-related problems. Skibiski called the investigative process "forensic engineering."

"The forensic side of it is basically trying to solve the problem. It's like putting a puzzle together," Skibiski said. "It is pretty straightforward. You do an investigation and you make a report."

Gary Pendergrass, project manager at ESC Inc. Engineers and Architects, said investigations most often focus on the technical elements of a case to determine what went wrong and why.

"If you dig deep enough, all the data paints the same picture, and you can find out why something did fail," Pendergrass said. "And that is good, useful information in litigation."

Each case varies, but typically an engineering firm is contacted by a law firm and asked to review information on a case and make a judgment based on that information. Pendergrass said the firm might also be called to provide expert testimony and/or help locate witnesses and prepare them for trial.

In addition to structural and foundation failures, investigations often are needed in cases dealing with storm-water flood damage, construction defects, and electrical and mechanical failures, Pendergrass said.

Engineering firms may also be called on to assess project management for a case. They determine if problems existed that led to cost overruns or defects in workmanship, Pendergrass said.

"We get involved in quite a few different issues," Pendergrass said.

ESC Inc. employs 13 licensed engineers and architects with expertise in more than a dozen specific engineering disciplines, so the company is prepared to provide litigation support, Pendergrass said.

"It's an area we have a real interest in," Pendergrass said. "I feel like we have the full range of engineering expertise in-house. Any issue that would come up in litigation we can deal with."

One issue specific to the Ozarks region is damage caused by sinkholes, Pendergrass said.

"We do a lot of work with sinkholes in this area in particular," Pendergrass said. "That's one thing we're known for here. There are a lot of sinkhole collapses around and under buildings that lead to litigation."

Sinkhole collapses require various types of subsurface investigations, Pendergrass said.

The investigation process varies from one job to the next. When examining the cause of equipment failure, engineers may do material testing to determine exactly why different components failed, or they might reconstruct a series of events that may have led to the failure, he said.

If a case deals with leakage from an underground storage tank and its effects on adjacent properties, engineers might install monitoring wells to define how far the contaminants have moved, Pendergrass said.

Regardless of the case, when providing litigation support, their job is to give a fair, honest assessment based on their expertise, he said.

"That's something we're very comfortable doing," Pendergrass said.

Skibiski said that testimonies by industry experts are not swayed depending on which attorney hired them.

"We're brought in as an independent investigator," Skibiski said. "We're hired by an attorney on one side or the other, but that's where it ends. We go in and investigate it on an independent basis and report back to the attorney who hired us."

Skibiski added that sometimes engineers might examine depositions or testimony from the opposing side and define mistakes or shortcomings that could help the attorney in pleading his case.

Skibiski said he once worked on a case that dealt with cracks in the foundation of a building. The expert witness for the other side was not a licensed engineer in the state of Missouri. His calculations were incorrect, and it was Skibiski's job to point that out to the attorney who hired him.

Pendergrass said ESC Inc. is called on for litigation support services quite often.

"These things come up fairly regularly. It seems like more and more as time goes on," Pendergrass said.