Originally Posted by gbryan84 (Post 13273779)

It's all walkable and you can get anywhere via subway. If hotels are cheaper in Chelsea then I would highly recommend it. Your wife will especially enjoy the Chelsea/Greenwich village area.

When are you thinking of coming up? If you want to do a half day in Hoboken let me know. Again, your wife will love the shops (reasonably priced) there and perhaps we can get rolov to join us for a beer while the girls shop.

Originally Posted by Anglo Large Clawed Otter (Post 13273775)

Unless this person is proving up records, or unless they were somehow personally involved in your transaction, I would be suspicious as to the purpose of this witness.

If the witness does not fall into those categories, I suspect they will attempt to offer some form of "expert" testimony (regarding booking/ticketing process, IT systems, who knows). First off, many small-claims courts have limitations or bars to such testimony (it's supposed to be a court easily accessible to lay-people, not requiring such levels of proof). So, if it's an "expert," I would first try to object on such grounds (if they exist in New York).

Further, an expert has to be qualified by his/her training, education and experience as an expert in the area in which he/she will be giving testimony, the scientific methodology underlying the witness' proposed testimony must be sound, and his/her testimony must be relevant to the issue at hand, and that testimony must be reasonably calculated to assist the trier of fact (here, the judge) in reaching a decision on some ultimate issue.

If they try to weasel in some "expert" testimony, you have a right to object to the witness' qualifications, and to cross-examine them as to their education, training, experience (etc.), and the soundness of the scientific methodology underpinning his/her testimony.

The relevance of their proposed grounds of testimony (and whether it's in any way more helpful than lay testimony) are more of a legal argument that would be made to the judge, rather than an issue for cross-examination. Under no circumstances should any purported expert be allowed to testify without a proper predicate laid for their claimed area of expertise, as well as a proper predicate for the "scientific" basis of their testimony (is their hypothesis testable, has it been peer-reviewed, was this opinion formed only for the purposes of litigation, etc.).

ETA - Going back to the admissibility of expert testimony in small-claims proceedings... normal court proceedings involve extensive discovery, where experts are disclosed (and their qualifications or methodology can be challenged) well in advance of trial. It would be inequitable to allow them to present scientific/expert testimony without any prior notice to you, as this constitutes unfair surprise and/or trial by ambush, neither of which is in keeping with sound public policy.

Originally Posted by Mackieman (Post 13273821)

ALCO, the people's lawyer. I actually understood most of that. ^

Originally Posted by Hartmann (Post 13273815)

Would you fly in to EWR or LGA when staying in Chelsea? The hotels are definitely cheaper there.

Originally Posted by sbm12 (Post 13273861)

And the witness is the Manager of BA's Customer Service & Refunds group in the Americas.

Originally Posted by ConciergeMike (Post 13273848)

LGA is physically closer by about 3 miles.

Originally Posted by sbm12 (Post 13273670)

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry9630/4.7.1.40 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

Hmmmm...BA brought a witness this morning. Interesting.

Originally Posted by Anglo Large Clawed Otter (Post 13273869)

And how is his/her testimony relevant to whether there was a binding contract between you and BA that was breached?

ETA - Regardless of how "nice" or "reasonable" their mop-up division was to you after the fact, that has nothing to do with the underlying contract, IMHO. If that's all she's going to testify about, I would object that her testimony is irrelevant to the breach of contract claim, and should be excluded.

Originally Posted by ConciergeMike (Post 13273734)

I'm not native, but I think Chelsea is too low...the lower third of Manhattan needs a day on its own between the WTC site/museum, Chinatown, Little Italy, the Village, etc. I would say stay in Midtown if it's possible to do so; you're close to the stuff that NYC is generally associated with and have a lot more options in the way of mass transit.

Originally Posted by sbm12 (Post 13273895)

I'm less worried about her testimony and more worried about convincing the judge/arbitrator that I'm actually due more than just my original refund from the transaction. Apparently they are going to claim that simply giving my money back is sufficient to nullify the contract.

Originally Posted by ConciergeMike (Post 13273848)

LGA is physically closer by about 3 miles.

Originally Posted by sbm12 (Post 13273895)

Apparently they are going to claim that simply giving my money back is sufficient to nullify the contract.

Originally Posted by xyzzy (Post 13273928)

Judging by that it's a wash. The real questions center around what time of day you will be arriving and how you plan to get to your hotel.