Mental adhesives

THE use of technology to help resolve maritime disputes is nothing new. Video and photographic evidence is often used to help support a case, while some lawyers rely on projection screens in the courtroom to help visually illustrate the events leading up to an incident. But possibly the most powerful tool available to the maritime lawyer is forensic animation.

Forensic animation enables the accurate reconstruction of a maritime event taking into account every minute detail whether it be wave height, direction and motion of the vessel, sea and weather conditions. This can then be replayed back to the court, instantly transporting the judge to the scene of the incident. It can also help persuade people to get back round the table without the need to go to court. But most importantly, it gets your message across.

“Technical details, which may be difficult to explain or difficult for a non-marine person to understand, are made clear and simple,” explains Kevin West, managing director of UK-based Elucidate 3D, specialists in forensic animation and creators of the memorable Triple Tragedy in Durban animation shown at the IBA conference in South Africa last year. “Complex issues, which may take days to explain, are condensed into a few minutes of simple and memorable animation that sends a powerful message to those watching.”

Not only can this vastly improve clarification and understanding of a particular issue or event, it can also help reduce costs by settling a case effectively and quickly. In fact, according to Elucidate 3D, research of 858 cases where animated reconstructions were used showed that all but 15 of the cases settled out of court. Out of the 15 that went to court, the side using forensic animation won every time.

One of the obstacles facing many lawyers around the world is the lack of judges with a maritime background. This is where forensic animation can be particularly useful. “In my experience, a judge who is not an expert in maritime law will understand maritime terms but may not know the exact meaning of them. This makes it difficult to explain the manoeuvres of the vessels involved,” says Ignacio de Ros, a Barcelona-based maritime lawyer. “Recent experience shows that computer simulations and demonstrations have been very successful at getting to a rational explanation.”

De Ros has been something of a pioneer in the use of technology to help resolve maritime disputes in his native Spain where, due to there being no special Admiralty Courts, maritime cases are handled by ordinary civil courts. “In my experience, judges enjoy the show. Furthermore, as they are really considering what they have seen, their sentences are much better argued,” he adds. In fact, the new Procedural Law, which entered into force in Spain in 2001, positively encourages the use of computer animations. In the UK, the feedback has also been very positive. In one case, a trial at the Crown Court that was scheduled for two weeks was reduced to one day when the other side saw the reconstruction and changed their plea. But that’s not necessarily the case the world over.

“At the moment in the Middle East, we are still quite some way off being able to make full use in litigation of the current technology available,” says Chris Mills, partner at Clyde & Co’s office in Dubai. “I think it will be some time yet before court appointed experts in this part of the world embrace technology to the extent where making such a presentation would be considered in anything other than an exceptional case.”

“Where I think such technology would be particularly powerful out here would be in collision cases but there is, of course, a cost consideration to be borne in mind,” adds Mills. The true cost of forensic animation depends on a number of factors, namely the complexity of the animation required and the time involved. “Every project is unique. Some may involve short simple modelling and animation taking a week or two to complete whereas others could take much longer,” says West. “The accuracy of any reconstruction ultimately relies on three main points. Firstly, the amount of information available, secondly the expert witness information and, finally, the skill of the animators.”

As Marshall Wilson, managing director of US-based Marshall Wilson Associates Inc, adds, expense is proportional to time. “It depends on the complexity of the case, the volume of information we have to sift through and the difficulty of explaining something. We do everything from sketches to computer animated photo realistic movies,” says Wilson, who has been involved in the creation of demonstrative evidence for more than 20 years, working closely with maritime lawyers, insurers and shipowners.

Although animation comes at a price, it is worth bearing in mind how effective it can be in reducing not only the length of litigation but also the cost involved. As de Ros explains, “Simulations concentrate facts into images which can be assimilated within a short time as opposed to spending hours listening to witness and expert witness depositions. Show the court visually in precise terms what happened and the risk of personal and divergent interpretation of the facts is considerably reduced.”

And the more involved a lawyer is in the early stages of an animation, the more powerful a tool it will become. As Wilson points out, the animation process enables the parties involved to cross check it for details from the testimony, weather, geography and various logs, records and known facts. Using animation can also help ensure the client is more engaged in defending the case, particularly if it involves the P&I correspondent or shipowner’s agent. “As soon as they have seen the first animated drawings, they become much more co-operative,” says de Ros.

Once complete, the animations are also easy to use and highly flexible. Not only is the whole reconstruction on one DVD, which can be played in court using a laptop, they are interactive, enabling the lawyer to dictate the speed of the presentation and jump back and forth through it as required.

But, it is not only in the courtroom where animation such as this can be applied in the maritime field. “There are also many advantages of animation in health and safety training for both crew and passengers,” says West. “After all, animation enables us to ‘hurt’ people and ‘wreck’ expensive equipment – something training videos cannot.”

As the saying goes, an image can tell a thousand words. This has been proved to be the case on many an occasion in the maritime world. Forensic animation is simply the latest development in the use of technology in maritime law that can significantly help resolve maritime disputes. Not only does it simplify the events and issues involved in a case, it instantly and effectively transports the courtroom back to the scene of an incident, enabling recall long after the spoken words have been forgotten.