 Seen a Rogue on the loose? Get in touch with our Roguemeister: JOHN SCHRAG jschrag@wweek.com (503) 243-2122 FAX: (503) 243-1115 This week's rogue goes to Michael E. Barkin, a professional courtroom witness who allegedly has trouble separating the whole truth from the whole cloth. According to a class-action lawsuit filed last week, insurance companies Allstate, Farmers and State Farm have hired Barkin to work on their behalf in at least 50 Oregon cases. Barkin, a San Francisco dentist, is called in to testify in cases where car-crash victims claim to suffer from a jaw injury called temporal mandibular joint dysfunction (TMJ). It's now starting to look as if there are big gaps in the dentist's testimony. Barkin is what's known as an independent medical examiner. Insurance companies in Oregon and elsewhere pay him $300 per hour to offer scientific testimony that shoots holes in plaintiffs' complaints. Specifically, Barkin has testified that he participated in a study in the early 1980s, funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Institute of Dental Research, that shows car accidents don't cause TMJ injury without a direct blow to the jaw. Or the way Barkin puts it, according to lawyer Doug Ward, who faced him in court last week, whiplash has no more impact on the jaw than "eating a cheese sandwich." "The guy is a great witness," Ward told WW. "He has killed claimants in trial after trial." The problem--and the reason behind the class-action suit--is that Barkin's science appears to be bogus. Days before a Multnomah County trial last week, Ward received word from the NHTSA and the NIDR that they have no record of such a study being performed in the 1980s. Ward used that to tear Barkin's case apart on the witness stand, winning $138,000 for his client--a woman who was a back-seat passenger in a 55-mph crash. (Her insurance company offered a $12,000 settlement before trial.) Barkin may not be the only one squirming on the witness stand. Lawyer
Daniel Gatti, who filed the class-action lawsuit, says that he plans
to go after the insurance companies next. "It's our position that these
insurance companies bring him out of San Francisco knowing that this
opinion is not really a legitimate one," he says.
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