Dr. Janet R. Thornton is an economist who specializes in the analysis of employment, insurance, and credit decisions.
She prepares analyses both proactively and in response to litigation and regulatory audits. These analyses examine the outcomes of a variety of labor practices, including selection, termination, and compensation, and how they relate to allegations of gender, race, ethnicity, religious, and age discrimination. She has also been involved in wage and hour matters, examining issues such as overtime (including misclassification), calculation of the regular rate of pay, and off-the-clock work.
Dr. Thornton has provided expert witness testimony regarding simple and complex random sampling designs, has analyzed survey data, and has calculated and incorporated statistical error rates associated with sampling designs. She has also calculated economic damages.
In her examination of insurance and credit pricing issues, Dr. Thornton has provided expert reports and testimony in response to litigation and has designed monitoring software specifically tailored to meet her clients’ needs. Additionally, she has provided expert testimony regarding voting rights’ issues involving the analysis of voter identification match rates and voting patterns among demographic groups.
Dr. Thornton has been retained by both plaintiffs and defendants, and has provided expert testimony in federal court, state court, and administrative hearings for more than forty matters, including Rhodes et al. v. Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc.; Rudy Rodriguez et al. v. Ford Motor Credit Company; Serrano et al. and Avalos et al. v. Cintas Corporation; Bowen et al. v. Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission et al.;and United States of America v. The State of North Carolina et al.
Dr. Thornton has served as an adjunct professor of quantitative methods and statistics at Florida State University. She has published in the Journal of Legal Economics and Journal of Forensic Economics, and she coauthored a chapter in the anthology Developments in Litigation Economics. She is a frequent presenter at industry liaison groups and client seminars.
Employment History
ERS Group
Managing director
2011 – 2015
Director
2004 – 2011
Vice president and senior research economist
1998 – 2004
Senior research economist
1997 – 1998
Research economist
1986 – 1997
Education
Florida State University
PhD, Economics, 1992
MS, Economics, 1985
University of Central Florida
BA, Economics/Political Science, 1981
Professional Affiliations
American Economic Association
National Association of Forensic Economics
North Florida Committee on Foreign Relations
Case Work
Dr. Thornton has been retained by both plaintiffs and defendants, and has provided expert testimony in federal court, state court, and administrative hearings for more than forty matters, including:
Rhodes et al. v. Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc.
Rudy Rodriguez et al. v. Ford Motor Credit Company
Serrano et al. and Avalos et al. v. Cintas Corporation
Bowen et al. v. Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission et al.
United States of America v. The State of North Carolina et al.
