A friend of mine was an astronomer at Carnegie Observatories and he was telling me about how every now and again lawyers would ask for an astronomer there to be an expert witness in a trial. It was usually traffic accidents where one side wanted to show that the Sun was in a particular place at the time of the accident.
Of course, they could just look it up in any astronomical almanac (which is what the astronomer would do anyway), but getting an official astronomer on the stand to say "the Sun was not in his eyes" gave the jury a better show.
Of course, they could just look it up in any astronomical almanac (which is what the astronomer would do anyway), but getting an official astronomer on the stand to say "the Sun was not in his eyes" gave the jury a better show.