Slip-and-fall fraud
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John C Sotter Featured in The National Law Review: The Expert Witness Problem in Slip-and-Fall Cases
John Sotter Featured in The National Law Review Safety Direct America President John C. Sotter was recently featured in The National Law Review with a new article examining an important problem in American slip-and-fall litigation: the reliability of expert witness testimony and the methods used to measure floor slip resistance. The Expert Witness Problem Hiding…
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An expert in everything may actually be an expert in only one thing: being hired as an expert. When a résumé says its owner can analyze nearly every kind of accident, product, walking surface, machine, human behavior and legal theory, the question is no longer simply how much experience that person has. The more important…
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For decades, I have worked in the field of slip resistance testing and floor safety. During that time, I’ve seen something deeply troubling develop in the United States: unreliable testing methods and questionable expert testimony increasingly influencing slip-and-fall litigation, building decisions, and public safety. That is why I recently wrote an opinion piece published by…
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If you’ve ever driven down a major highway in the United States, you’ve seen them—billboards everywhere for slip and fall attorneys. It raises an uncomfortable question: 👉 Why are slip and fall lawsuits so common in the U.S.? In my view, part of the answer may lie in something most people never think about: 👉…
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There’s a hard truth in the litigation world that most jurors—and many attorneys—never stop to consider: If someone makes a full-time living as an “expert witness,” what exactly are they an expert in? In many cases, the honest answer is this: they’re experts at being expert witnesses. Not practitioners.Not innovators.Not researchers advancing their field.Professional testifiers.…
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According to shoe manufacturer Keen, the Brungraber Mark II measures the static coefficient of friction (SCOF), which means it’s a “device that determines the point at which a material slips.” Most every SCOF test ever published has now been withdrawn, except for the “safety scam” that is ASTM D2047, which measures how slippery a floor…
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Slip and fall expert witnesses in the United States frequently rely on either the English XL Variable Incidence Tribometer (VIT) or the Brungraber Slip-Test Mark IIIB. What is troubling is that neither instrument currently has a published, peer-reviewed ASTM test method in force in any country, and both trace back to ASTM standards (F1677 and…
