Articles

TASA ID: 4009

In many product liability cases there is something missing from an existing warning and instruction - some safety information which arguably the plaintiff did not know at the time of the accident. It may be relatively straight forward to figure out whether or not the existing warning was defective by reference to items like the ANSI Z353 Standards, signal word, color, conspicuity, language, grade level word choice, whether or not the warning adequately explains the hazard and the consequences of not heeding the warning and whether or not the warning explains what to do to avoid the hazard.  All of these are items which in general make a warning more likely to be noticed, read, understood and heeded.  That is exactly why the standards and authorities require them.  

TASA ID: 4009

Jurors in product liability warnings cases strive to answer these two questions: 

1. Was the warning on this product defective?
2. Was a defect in this warning a proximate cause of this personal injury accident?

Plaintiffs do not prevail unless jurors provide a “yes” answer to both questions.  The kinds of arguments and the evidence presented for each of these questions are vastly different from each other.

TASA ID: 3647

We have continued to work on more detailed risk evaluations on our projects, trying to use Monte Carlo simulation methods that our friends in industrial projects have used to quantify the variations in total schedules that affect their financial outcomes. You might remember the summary chart of how good our master schedules were over several years. I have taken out the small projects from the figure below, which makes it look even worse.

To read the full article, select the download option below.

TASA ID: 3647

It’s been awhile since we checked in on general building contractor finances. The best data comes from the annual Construction Financial Management Association annual report, now called the Benchmarker. They survey most financially sound builders each year, and provide data that the builders themselves can use to gauge their progress versus their peers. The last time we did this was in 2013, so we will be seeing what has happened in the last three years as the market and the economy have improved.

TASA ID: 3647

In the last few months we have started using Monte Carlo simulation and more risk assessment on schedules as a result of the realization of how far we had missed overall schedules in the past. Our colleagues in industrial plant investment decision making have a well developed set of risk management practices to handle their technical, political, and governmental risks.