Forensics Cases Highlight Human Variability in Product Use

Abstract

In this article, I present six forensics human factors/ergonomics cases that are typical of many situations in which the defendant had no intent to harm the plaintiff and the plaintiff made a (perhaps foreseeable) mistake. Human factors/ergonomics arguments on both sides delved into the latent hazards associated with the product or system design and operation. In some of the cases, the design decision was made for a reasonable purpose, but the safety trade-off was either not considered or simply ignored. In other cases, the “victim” did not behave as intended but did behave in a foreseeable way.