Plaintiff’s economist witness contradicts testimony during cross-examination

We were brought into the defense of this contract and tort case fewer than 40 days before trial started. Plaintiff sought millions in damages, and we did not have an opportunity to depose plaintiff’s economic witness who was a professor of Economics at a local university. We investigated the professor and obtained a copy of the syllabus for an economics course he taught. We then got a copy of the textbook he used to teach the course, and showed in cross-examination that the method he used to put a value of millions on the plaintiff’s supposed business losses was grossly different from the methods that he taught his students to use for business valuation. As a result, the plaintiff’s damage claim was shown to be grossly inflated and the jury returned a verdict that was a fraction of what plaintiff had been seeking.