How Does a Corporate Rep Deposition Help a Texas Truck Accident Case?

A corporate representative deposition puts the person a trucking company chooses as its voice under oath, and a Daubert challenge decides which experts a jury gets to hear. Hank Stout, Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law and co-founder of Sutliff & Stout, sits down with Abby Arnold to walk through both, including a fatal-crash case where the company's witness could not find the safety policy the company claimed to have. Questions answered in this episode: What is a corporate representative deposition? Does a truck driver's second job count as on-duty time? How do you prove the federal trucking safety rules applied to the driver? What happens when a company witness can't find its own safety policy? How does company testimony support negligent entrustment, training, and supervision claims? What is a Daubert or Robinson challenge to an expert? What does a judge weigh before letting an expert testify? Can a chiropractor testify that a back surgery was unnecessary? How can an unprepared company witness change a mediation? Topics covered: corporate representative depositions, deposition topic notices, written discovery, hours of service, on-duty time, USDOT numbers, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, moonlighting policies, negligent entrustment, negligent training, negligent supervision, Daubert and Robinson challenges, the judge's gatekeeping function, accident reconstruction, biomechanical experts, life care planners, and mediation. Hank Stout on who speaks for a trucking company: "All of those individuals can speak for themselves and what they did within the company. They can't actually speak for the company." Hank Stout on Daubert challenges: "Those are the three basic things that the court's looking at, right? Are they qualified? Is it scientifically reliable? And is it helpful to the jury?" Hank Stout on expert qualifications: "With all due respect to chiropractors, they're not qualified to talk about back surgery, right?" Hank Stout is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law and a Texas Super Lawyer since 2012. The firm works on contingency: no fee unless you recover.