Abstract
This article discusses the process of qualifying as an expert witness in court cases. The author's personal experience as a human factors expert witness in a representative case is described and used as an illustrative example. The role of the expert witness in typical injury litigations is described. The difficulty in convincing judges to allow such testimony by experts is also discussed. The value of human factors expert witness testimony is shown through the particulars of an inadvertent landing gear retraction accident lawsuit. In addition, a discussion of the negligence phase of these types of litigations is provided and it is demonstrated again using the landing gear case as illustration, how human factors expert witness testimony can be extremely integral to the judgment of negligence.
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