A forensic accountant traces money through bank and business records for use in a lawsuit, and you may need one in a Georgia divorce when your claim depends on showing where specific money went.
Specific Transfers, Not a General Suspicion
In Moore v. Moore, 281 Ga. 81 (2006), a wife claimed her husband had fraudulently moved assets into a farming corporation he half owned. Applying an earlier Court of Appeals decision, the Georgia Supreme Court held that she “was required to identify and prove specific conveyances,” including “the time of the transfers and the instruments by which they were accomplished.” Her own expert accountant testified that the corporate accounting records looked good and that he found no evidence of a fraudulent transfer, and the directed verdict for the corporation was affirmed.
Consulting or Testifying
OCGA 9-11-26(b)(4) treats the two roles differently. If you expect to call the accountant at trial, the other side may require you “through interrogatories” to identify the expert and state “the substance of the facts and opinions to which the expert is expected to testify,” and may depose the expert, paying “a reasonable fee for the time spent.” An accountant retained or specially employed in anticipation of litigation who is not expected to testify can generally be questioned only “upon a showing of exceptional circumstances under which it is impracticable for the party seeking discovery to obtain facts or opinions on the same subject by other means.” Leaving a testifying expert out of your interrogatory answers can keep the expert off the stand, as our post on interrogatories explains.
Getting the Opinion In
Whether the accountant may give opinions at all is decided under OCGA 24-7-702, as our post on expert witness qualifications explains. An expert may also rely on records that are not themselves admissible, if experts in the field reasonably rely on that kind of material, as our post on experts and hearsay explains.
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This post is a quick overview of the law and is not intended as legal advice. Please feel free to contact our office for a consultation if you have questions about this or any other legal aspects regarding your case!