Engineering & Operations
Industrial & Commercial Product Liability
Product Liability: Product liability is a legal arena that often
requires engineering input to resolve questions of negligence, strict liability, comparative fault, and safer alternative designs.
The legal process requires a clear understanding of how relevant codes and standards apply to the product (or service) in question.
Often, a reasonable standard of care must also be applied based on the usual experience and customs of a particular industry. This
often occurs in matters of systems integration where a product can be used in a wide range of diverse applications spanning multiple
industries and operating environments.
Although a product may in itself be subject to strict liability, forensic engineering can evaluate how subsequent
alteration contributed to a safety or performance issue. The appropriate product defect must be identified and analyzed in regard to the
cause of an accident or performance problem. The commercial aspects of how the product was manufactured, distributed, installed, and
maintained can also contribute to questions of product liability. Further aspects include evaluation of sophisticated users, safety
warnings, and supporting documentation that all contribute to questions of product liability.
Click the links below to view sample forensic engagements regarding
product liability:
Turbine control system
Linear air pump
Ground fault detection
Variable speed drive
DCS programming
Refrigeration control
Safety PLC System
Asphalt paver
Personal alarm system
Pipeline leak detection
Two hand press control
Conveyor control system
Fail safe valve positioner
Click Here for detailed list of project profiles.
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Product Liability
An engineer can assist with identifying a product defect that leads to product liability.
The legal aspects include negligence, strict liability, and safer alternative designs.
The matter of subsequent remedial measures is also important but does not directly
affect the suitability of a prior product design.
Subsequent alteration, however, is important if the defect was not present when the product was
manufactured or installed. Misues of a product may still result in product liability if proper instructions
and warning lables are not provided with the product. An assumption of risk can be claimed for a
sophisticated user who should be aware of product features and limitations.
A statute of limitation or statute of repose may apply to some product liability situations.
An engineer can help evaluate the reasonable nature of a product liability claim in terms
of these two statues. The distribution statute is used to link a product seller or product
distributor to a manufacturer such that the distributor is involved in the product liability.
Alteration of a product after installation is an important factor to consider in product
liability analysis. The concept of comparitive fault includes the plaintiff fault in causing
an accident related to product liabilty.
Artzat consulting has experience with product liability for medical device, instrumentation, control system,
retrofit, assembly line, and boat motor. Other work includes product liability for personal alarm system,
linear air compressor, and variable speed drive. Additional experience includes product liability for
computer control system, PLC control system, engineering design, and engineering management. Project management
is also an area of product liability when the product is a completed project.
Other areas of product liability include industrial equipment, automated systems, and commercial equipment
such as water filters, carbonator, and flow meter. Product liability and product defect are related in
areas such as pharmaceutical devices and UPS uninterruptible power supply. Power press equipment such as
hydraulic press and pneumatic press have product liability concerns with the two-hand control system, machine
guarding, and other safety related functions. Improper design for lockout-tagout loto can also cause product
liability concerns if the manufacturer did not properly account for maintenance activity in the design
and documentation such as the user manual or maintenance manual.
product defect
A product defect can cause an accident or other damage. The specific defect must be
identified and tied to a specific entity to which the liability can be placed. Artzat Consulting
has worked on product liability lawsuits for programmable controller PLC, distributed control
system DCS, and many industrial and commercial products.
Artzat Consulting is owned by Arthur Zatarain, PE in Metairie Louisiana,
a suburb of New Orleans Artzat provides consulting and expert witness services
to attorneys, insurers, and end users. Typical projects relate to equipment,
automation, instrumentation, and control systems. Service is available nationwide
with engineering licenses held in Louisiana, Alabama, California, and Alaska.
Forensic Engineer
A forensic engineer performs analysis and reporting on technhical matters
that are typically being pricessed through some form of legal matter. However,
a legal environment isn't required for a forensic examination. The analysis
may be performed merely to determine the cause of a specific event or condition.
For example, a forensic examination may be made on a control system to determine
why an accident occured, or why a system did not perform as expected. The
forensic analysis may be of software code such as ladder lofic in a PLC,
or it may involve hard wired relay logic, electrical controls, power distribution,
or instrumentation. Forensic engineering is therefore useful in a variety
of situations regardless of the legal entanglement.
Industrial Equipment
Typical equipment includes programmable logic controller PLC, distrubited
control system DCS, and electric relay logic. PLC systems use ladder logic
for most operations, while a DCS will often use function block programming.
The concepts of PLC and DCS have merged into a unified control platform based
on open architecture interfaces. The use if ladder logic is widespread due
to its earlier application to relay logic circuits.
An expert witness is used to investigate and evaluate the technical and
commercial aspects of accidents, intellectual property, and commercial matters.
Artzat consulting can assist clients in all these areas, with experience
with steam boilers, paper mill, steel mill, burner management, and telemetry
scada. Other areas include medical devices, flow measurement, meters, power
distribution, and refridgeration.
Expert Witness Services
Expert witness can be provided in any state, with experience in Louisiana,
California, Alabama, and Alaska. Other states include North Carolina, Olkahoma,
Illionis, and Indiana and Texas. Michigan has also been served, with the
states of Washington, Colorado, Oregon, and District of Columbia DC. Any
state such as New York or New Jersey can also be served by expert witness
service. Professional credentials are important, such as licensed engineer
or registered engineer. Also importnat is a masters degree in engineering
or similar field. A phd is not a necessity for an expert witness because
career experience and expert witness experience is more useful to the client
than a phd with no relevant experience.
product Liability
A forensic engineer is useful for matters of product liability and product defects.
Artzat Consulting has experience with product liability for industrial and commercial
equipment. Product liability has also been analyzed for control systems, programmable
controllers, ladder logic, and engineering design. Product liability can result from
an original product manufacturer oem, or from a systems integrator who combines components
into a complete system.
Forensic Engineering Locations
Service in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Alabama is efficient due
to the proximity of Metairie to those areas. However, an airplane will take
Artzat anywhere within the USA in a matter of hours. Travel to Alabama areas
such as Birmingham or Montgomery or Mobile is easy, with Huntsville also
accessible by car. Visits to Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin are
also less than one day away by car. A phd is not unusual for an expert witness,
but is not really important when compared to real life experience with equipment,
controls and automation with PLC and DCS control system equipment.
Service in California includes Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego
as well as outlying Bakersfield and Antioch. Seattle is a bit far, but the
airline does most of the heavy lifting. Travel to New York NYC occurs easily
on JetBlue and Delta. Once in NYC the entire tri-state area is easily accessibls,
as is upstate new york.
Service to New England is welcomed, so please inquire with your technical
requirements for an expert witness. Travel to new England such as Boston
is by JetBlue, or other carriers, which can then lead to other New England
cities.
Engineer for Machine Accident
An engineer ma be required to serve as an expert witness or forensic
for a machine accident such as with a conveyor, power press, steel mill,
or extraction machine. The instance could be an equipment accident, or it
could be a process accident. A typical example is an expert engineer for
a manufacturing accident. This could be an expert engineer or forensic engineer
in an assembly plant, or an expert engineer in a production line or on a
vehicle assembly line.
Oilfield accident
An expert engineer can be useful to evaluate an oilfield or oil and gas
accident. Those events may include oil and gas or the related products such
as water, co2, h2s, and sulfates. The accidents occur on oil wells, gas
wells, pipelines, storage tanks, and production vessels such as separators,
treaters, waste heat recovery units, and water treating facilities. Such
events can be generally divided into an oil and gas drilling accident or
an oil and gas production accident. An oilfield accident requiring an expert
engineer can occur onshore of offshore. The expert engineer can be for control
system, production system, safety system or automation system, or instrumentation.
The system can be electrical, electric, electronic, hydraulic, and pneumatic.
A computer control system can also require an expert engineer. An industiral
engineer can also be used if the matter involves safety and production systems.
Automatic control
An expert engineer may be required for an accident involving automatic
control. That expert could be for electrical engineer, control system engineer,
or automation engineer. A mechanical engineer or someone with experience
with mechanical engineering can also be useful for an automatic control
accident. A certified systems integrator is someone who can be an expert
engineer for automatic control. The systems integration involves combining
multiple equipment and techology into a single control system. This involves
design, programming, fabrication, testing installation, and maintenance.
industrial accident
An industrial accident may require an expert engineer or forensic engineer
to analyze and evaluate the control system connected with the event. The
accident may have nothing to do with the control system. Still, a forensic
engineer may be required to analyze the system to determine that the control
system was not af fault.
Equipment accident
An equipment accident can require an expert engineer or expert witness
to help evaluate the circumstances and situation including the mechanical
and electrical components of the equipment. This can be industrial equipment,
process equipment, manufacturing system, commercial equipment such as heater
or dryer, or pump and compresssor. Industrial equipment is also a flow meter,
electrical switchgear, control switch, button, and instrumentation. End
devices are pressure, temperature, level, and other physical measurement.
Many equipment is used for food production, packaging, transportation, storage,
and conveyor. Metal processing such as steel mill, paper mill, refinery,
petrochemical, and tank farm. Vehicle can also be equipment itself, or it
can contain devices related to an equipment accident.
