Some professions are very litigious. For example, approximately 13% of the 67,000 members of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) have provided expert testimony for the courts.1 The number of occupational health and safety (OHS) pros that provide expert witness service is unknown. Many of the leading OHS consultants, however, list expert witness as a service they provide.
In the earliest days of OHS, disputes of who was responsible for the payment of a workplace injury or illness was settled by litigation. Every US state eventually passed workers’ compensation insurance law to establish a no-fault system where responsibility for injury/illness payment nearly always falls upon the employer. According to NOLO2, however, the following conditions may be outside the WC shield: