Allegedly Defective Ladder Injures Homeowner

Case Overview

This case involves a 41-year-old female homeowner who was injured after she fell off of a ladder. She had borrowed an aluminum ladder from her neighbor to clean her gutters. As the woman reached the top of the ladder, it gave way causing her to fall 15 feet. The woman suffered a traumatic brain injury as a result of the incident. It was alleged that the structural integrity of the ladder was compromised. We require an expert who can perform an inspection of the ladder and determine if the ladder was defective or the structure had been tampered with.

Questions to the Occupational Health and Safety expert and their responses

Please describe your failure analysis experience, particularly with ladders.

I have 16+ years of forensic engineering experience inspecting failed ladders and determining root cause failure analysis. I am proficient in the ANSI 14 series of ladder standards including portable, commercial, and industrial grade ladder standards. I am also a voting member of a forensic engineering subcommittee. I have significant legal experience, as I have evaluated 200+ failure analysis case and testified on 20+ occasions as a forensic engineering expert. About 40-50 of the cases I've handled have specifically involved ladder failure analysis, including inspection of both wood and aluminum ladder failures. The failures I've analyzed have included buckled legs, failed fasteners, missing labels, and toppled ladders from misuse.

About the expert

This expert has been working as an engineer and forensic engineer for over 20 years. He earned his BS in mechanical engineering from the University of Western Ontario and then went on to earn his MS in biomechanical engineering from the University of Toronto. He is a licensed professional engineer and a member of several distinguished professional organizations, including the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and the American Society for Testing & Materials, for which he serves on the Forensic Engineering and Consumer Products Committees, among others. He started his career by working as a mechanical engineer for Algood Casters Ltd where he conducted failure analysis and helped develop standards. From there he went on to serve as the lead forensic investigator of Giffin Koerth Inc. where he reviewed personal injury matters including collision reconstruction, personal injury, and product failure cases. Currently, this expert serves as the president as well as lead investigator for a human factors and forensics consulting firm in Ontario.