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considered evidence until introduced at trial by a fact witness);
see also United States v. 0.59 Acres of Land, 109 F.3d 1493, 1496
(9th Cir. 1997). In a case such as this, where an expert witness
relies upon facts which are critical to the Court’s analysis of
an issue, we expect that the party calling the witness will enter
into evidence those critical facts. Petitioner did not.
Petitioner, in short, asks us to close our eyes to the
non-expert-opinion evidence and to adopt without adequate
verification Fishman’s conclusion and the representations upon
which he relied. We decline to do so. Whereas we may determine
the reasonableness of compensation with the assistance of experts
if we consider it helpful, we will not accept an expert’s
conclusion when it is based on premises unsupported by the
record.
Our second concern with Fishman’s conclusion is that he
inexplicably neglected to take into account properly the
“significant” flaws in the Robert Morris compilation that he
acknowledged upon cross-examination had influenced his opinion.
The compilation, for example, did not reflect the fact that the
salary of a person in one part of the country may be different
than the salary of a person performing the same services in
another part of the country. Nor did the compilation reflect the
number of corporate officers in a particular category. As to the
latter flaw, Fishman stated, he listed the responsibilities of
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