Public Health Experts (?) and the Courtrooms. What the…..?

In the January 28, 2010 Scientific American, Carina Storrs interviewed David Rosner, a history professor, regarding his experience as an “expert” in the Rhode Island public nuisance litigation brought by the State of Rhode Island against alleged former manufacturers of lead pigments and paints. Scientific American? Interviewing a history professor? Making comparisons to Hollywood movies? Let’s think about this a minute.
 
The history professor, is quoted as stating that the documents he and another history professor reviewed “had to be explained [for] a jury to understand why the industry . . . should be giving money to the thousands of [children] in Rhode Island who are poisoned every year.” What?
 
Lest the history professor forget, our system of justice is not about “giving money” to anyone short of a final determination . . . not by “experts” . . . that anyone is owed any money from anyone else. This is a serious business and not one for glibly pushing an agenda. And, let’s not forget, by the way, the Rhode Island Supreme Court unanimously determined that the lawsuit the history professor championed should have been dismissed at “the outset,” some 9 years earlier. Consequently, the history professor’s “explanation” of the documents was not even necessary. In Wisconsin, a trial judge was more explicit and excluded this “explanation.”
 
It would seem the history professor does not have faith that ordinary people sitting on a jury can read and understand documents. Or, does the history professor want to put his spin on what he thinks these historical records should mean, despite what they may or may not in fact record, in order to force the result he believes is just?
 
I fear the history professor has been watching too much of Hollywood’s view of what happens in a courtroom. Courts are and should be gatekeepers, not Hollywood sound stages for anyone with an agenda who wants to give money away to anyone else. The fact that the history professor did not have the Hollywood ending to his story gives me comfort that the system works. Welcome to the real world, professor.