One of the benefits of aging is that we as we grow in experience, we can also grow in wisdom. Safety professionals grow in their ability to understand the injury and disease causation process. We grow in our ability to understand how interventions can prevent catastrophic injury, disease and death. But many people have no idea that we are among more than 32,000 members of the American Society of Safety Engineers who have dedicated our lives to the prevention of injury, disease and death. While most people who need to know of us do know of us, there is one group that should know more about what we do. That is, those people who serve on juries who must decide who should have prevented serious injury or death. They have a need to know of the principles and practices of injury prevention which we have established over the years.
Ethical arguments about causation and responsibility relative to catastrophic injury, disease and death in the workplace can be very engaging intellectually and emotionally. They are essentially questions of justice. The truth should prevail. But what is truth and justice in this arena? How does a safety professional decide which side of the argument is the right side?
More safety professionals should be involved in the legal system as expert witnesses. Too often, the voice of the dedicated, experienced, knowledgeable safety professional is missing. Too often, lawyers hire engineers or others with little or no training in safety to opine on questions of injury causation, safety responsibility, injury prevention techniques, safe design and the efficacy of safety devices. But this is our field - SAFETY! Juries need to hear from us. More of us should be involved. The legal arena is very challenging, interesting, exciting and rewarding. It may be for you. It is not for everyone.
The personal characteristics that the safety expert needs are competency, integrity, experience, the ability to communicate clearly, honesty, courage, persistence and a very tough crust. When you go into battle with highly competent, seasoned, intelligent lawyers who know much of what you have said and written in the past, and have stayed up late crafting questions to get particular admissions, you had better be on your toes. This work is not for the timid. Every time you go into deposition or the court room, what is at stake is often hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, the economic security of the person catastrophically injured or the economic survival of the family of the fatally injured worker as well as your career. The stakes are high. You must be able to stand your ground. You must know well the ground on which you stand on. Where do we stand?
The ground we stand on is the Principles and Practices of Injury Prevention established by safety authorities.
