Court Excludes Causation Expert Who Did Not Personally Inspect Property

Originally published by Shane Smith.

In most first-party property insurance disputes, experts are frequently required to provide opinions and testimony on the cost to repair a property. An insurance company will often seek to exclude an insured’s expert on the basis that the opinions are not reliable because the expert did not personally inspect the property.
In a recent New Jersey federal decision1 involving a Superstorm Sandy claim, the insurance company moved to strike and exclude the homeowner’s expert, Mr. Fife who prepared a 12 page estimate of required repairs for the interior and exterior of the property, totaling over $86,000. The inspection of the property was conducted by Mr. Davis, not Mr. Fife. Mr. Fife was not present on the date of the inspection, did not visit Plaintiff’s property prior to submitting his estimate and never spoke to Plaintiff regarding the condition of the property prior to Sandy or the damage allegedly caused during Sandy.

The insurance company moved to exclude Mr….

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