westhawk:
Of course since NTSB findings are specifically *excluded by statute from being used as evidence in civil lawsuits, the term "investigators" doesn't actually refer to the NTSB. In many civil suits, that term means people hired by the plaintiff's attorney to "investigate" the circumstances of the event connected to the cause of action and then testify as expert witnesses. So the statement isn't necessarily entirely untrue. And some evidence collected in the course of the NTSB investigation may remain available to plaintiff's "investigators" to draw their own conclusions from.
Their findings are excluded, but the factual data in the accident's docket is not. In recent years those dockets have quite a bit of factual data, including NTSB photographs.
Then, in the litigation it becomes a battle of the experts, some of whom can be quite good.