| The Auditor's Testimony at Trial: A Case Study |
| Tuesday, 20 December 2011 10:01 |
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Written By Travis Ketterman Whitfield McGann & Ketterman P: 312.251.9700 E: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it In my previous post, I reviewed important aspects of a federal appellate court decision about the admissibility of an auditor’s report in a trial seeking multi-employer trust fund contributions. See Trustees of Chicago Plastering Institute Pension Fund v. Cork Plastering Co., 570 F.3d 890 (7th Cir. 2009). In a previous entry, Phil Vivirito, Bond Beebe’s Director of Payroll and Compliance Auditing, discussed his recent testimony at a similar federal ERISA trial. In keeping with that theme, this entry returns to the Cork Plastering case and discusses a federal appellate court’s review of a supervising auditor’s testimony at trial. The appellate court noted that the supervising auditor testified at length about preparing the report, the agreed upon procedures used by the auditor, and the report’s conclusions as to contributions owed to the Trust Funds. While the auditor in the Cork Plastering case was not one of the field auditors, the federal district court (the trial court) accepted the auditor’s testimony because he (1) was sufficiently involved in the audit of the employer, (2) served as the auditing firm’s liaison to the Trust Funds, (3) spoke regularly with the field auditors and met with them to review their progress, and (4) signed the auditor’s report after reviewing the work papers. The appellate court agreed with the trial court that the testimony of the auditor was proper. The appellate court further noted that the supervising auditor recalculated the total amount of contributions owed to the Trust Funds before his trial testimony. Moreover, the supervising auditor reviewed the overall report and confirmed that the report complied with the standards of the auditing firm and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. In the end, because the supervising auditor had taken these steps, the auditor was qualified to lay the foundation for the entry of the audit report into evidence at trial and to discuss the findings at trial. In my next blog entry, I will discuss the same appellate court’s review of the Trust Funds’ request for auditing fees from the employer.
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