A successful construction litigation case requires building strong arguments. The arguments a party presents in a construction litigation case must be supported by scientific evidence. Without proper evidentiary support, the party risks losing the case, and, likely, thousands of dollars in damages and legal fees. One of the most crippling types of damages parties in a construction case suffer is lost profits that stem from their claims. Expert witnesses, such as structural steel experts, may help these parties calculate their lost profits and present these arguments to a court. Structural steel experts are valuable in a variety of construction litigation cases, whether they involve the construction of a skyscraper or single-story department store.

When construction is not completed properly, it can cost a business hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost profits. For example, consider a store that is scheduled to open its doors in July. Due to problems with the building’s steel frame, the store does not open until October. Thus, the store has lost close to four months of the profits it would have earned had the steel frame been erected correctly.

The parties will never know the exact amount of profits that were lost in such a case, but to recover lost profits, the courts only require damages calculated to a reasonable certainty.

Without a structural steel expert, it would be difficult to assess the fair value of lost profits. Structural steel experts analyze the method by which the steel has been used in the construction project and explain how the process was faulty. In the above example, structural steel experts may pinpoint when the frame should have been completed. This information may then be used by the company’s accountants and other financial experts to calculate the profits that were lost due to the delay in construction.