What Do Human Factors/Ergonomics Experts Have to Tell Juries That They Don’t Know – But May Think They Know?

Abstract

Product liability and personal injury litigation frequently involves circumstances where an injury or property damage occurred as humans were interacting with products and/or environments while performing some task. Human Factors/Ergonomics (HFE) professionals are often involved as experts in these cases. The question addressed here is what benefits do juries derive from HFE expert testimony. In this session five panelists with experience as expert witnesses each describe a case that illustrates HFE testimony. Examples of issues addressed are sensory/perceptual limitations, attention capture and capacity, and induced errors. The presentations focus on issues where expert testimony would likely benefit jury understanding technical topics about which jurors may know little about or have misconceptions.