The Pathology of Products Liability and Organizational Negligence

TASA ID: 1648

After 50 years of work with more than 700 companies, I have amassed significant evidence that organizations exhibit the same traits as living organisms. Some are born healthy. Best case, the principals are innately focused on the health of their employees and the needs of their customers. If the win-win vision is inculcated in their culture they stay healthy through the life cycle of the business.

Others are born with latent diseases. The principals are focused on revenue and market share. Business processes evolve without a master wellness program. Sooner or later the hidden disease or a pathogen enters the organization and the health of the company wains. These are the companies that are devastated when they are served with a lawsuit. The principals and the organization wear the scars of the lawsuit forever.

I have been a quality control engineer for more than 40 years. In my consulting work I help organizations implement effective quality management systems. Unfortunately, effective quality systems seldom include risk avoidance processes. I now teach foreseeable risk and risk avoidance to organizations that want to remain healthy and thrive.

As an expert witness, I use my quality auditing experience to look for pathogens in defendant companies. Through discovery, depositions and the findings of other experts, I create a narrative of how the defendant did or did not exhibit an appropriate standard of care in introducing their products to the stream of commerce.

My work is like a doctor, sorting through the symptoms, discovering the disease and writing a diagnosis. I have an enviable success rate in creating a diagnosis that is compelling and irrefutable. 

I share this with my fellow experts to help you enhance your investigative processes. I have worked with many forensic experts who spend countless hours reconstructing accidents and failures. Unfortunately, many expert reports and depositions replete with technical jargon and obtuse arguments. 

I have witnessed endless hours of opposing experts obfuscate their findings with conflicting arguments that only they understand. Attorneys attempt to school themselves in the inner workings of the issues, but they should not have to. Expert reports and testimony must be understandable by a jury with a high school education.

My reports are written as narratives about how a sequence of events came together at the wrong time to create a disastrous outcome. Even the most technically complex issues must be reduced to human, manufacturing or design anomalies. They tell a story of why the failure happened, not the molecular makeup of tire rubber.

I have seen expert transcripts where they embarrass themselves with being unable to communicate their research and conclusions to opposing counsel. Your reports and testimony should be in plain English and have a compelling story. You can add your research and technical conclusions in appendices for the opposing experts to attempt to refute.

When you go to a doctor for a diagnosis and treatment regimen, you expect a concise and understandable explanation without having to go to Grey's Anatomy for explanations and definitions.    

You will be of much greater value to potential clients if you can create understandable scenarios that are on target and do not require the attorney to have to learn the physics of resistive heating.

TASA Article Disclaimer

This article discusses issues of general interest and does not give any specific legal or business advice pertaining to any specific circumstances.  Before acting upon any of its information, you should obtain appropriate advice from a lawyer or other qualified professional.

This article may not be duplicated, altered, distributed, saved, incorporated into another document or website, or otherwise modified without the permission of TASA and the author (TASA Id#:1648). Contact marketing@tasanet.com for any questions.