Legal Question in Personal Injury in California

If a person is injured at a hotel, and there is a claim for a structural defect i.e. a cupboard door fell on his or her head, and the judge has required a forensic engineer to check to see if the board can fall and cause and injury, what is to prevent the defendant from ensuring that the cupboard is fail proof prior to the site inspection? Simply, how can a forensic engineer prevent evidence tampering? The likely hood that the cupboard will be able to reenact the event that took place is rare, is it not?


Asked on 5/29/13, 10:42 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Armen Tashjian Law Offices of Armen M. Tashjian

Excuse me for saying this, but your question is somewhat nonsensical. What prevents people from breaking the law? Or, how can a forensic engineer prevent other peoplo from destroying evidence? First, many factors will prevent some, but not most people, from breaking the law. For example, the fear of criminal prosecution, or civil liability will do. Also, most people do not break the law because it is not only legally, but also morally wrong. Second, it is not the job of forensic engineer to prevent the defendant from destroying the evidence. His job is to figure out if there was a structural or some other defect which caused the harm. From a layman's perspective I can say the doors are not designed to fall on people's heads. So, the engineer should be able to figure out what went wrong.

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Answered on 5/30/13, 7:18 am


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