Safety Expert Witness

Nationwide safety expert witness specializing in standard of care analysis, hazard foreseeability, and the consensus standards that define accepted safety practice. Serving plaintiff and defense counsel in workplace and personal injury matters involving industrial, commercial, and retail environments.

Bryan Netherland, MBA, MS, CSP, CSHO, ARM | Safety Expert Witness

• Certified Safety Professional (CSP)
• 15+ years occupational safety leadership
• Global safety leadership experience
• Adjunct Professor – Occupational Safety & Health
• Nationwide Litigation Support

Not every injury case turns on a regulation. In many of the matters attorneys bring to me, the regulatory analysis is clean. No citation was issued, or the responsible party met every applicable requirement, and yet someone was seriously injured. Other cases involve injured parties that OSHA does not cover at all: contractors, vendors, customers, or members of the public hurt in commercial and industrial environments.

These cases turn on a different set of questions. Was the hazard reasonably foreseeable? Did the responsible party exercise the care that a reasonably prudent owner, operator, or employer would have exercised under the same circumstances? And what did the safety profession understand about preventing this type of incident long before it occurred?

That is the work of a safety expert witness. Where an OSHA analysis asks whether a regulation was violated, a safety expert analysis asks whether the conduct met the standard of care that the industry itself established. The two questions overlap, but they are not the same, and many cases are won or lost on the second one.

If your matter centers on an OSHA citation, employer regulatory obligations, or compliance with specific federal standards, see my OSHA expert witness services. If it turns on foreseeability and reasonable care, regardless of what any regulation required, you are in the right place.

Regulations are intentionally broad. They address an enormous range of industries within a single framework, and they often tell responsible parties to control recognized hazards without prescribing how. The technical detail lives elsewhere, in the consensus standards developed by organizations such as ANSI, ASTM International, NFPA, and ISO. These standards are written by committees of engineers, safety professionals, and manufacturers who have spent careers understanding how specific hazards develop and what it takes to prevent them.

Although widely described as voluntary, consensus standards carry real weight in litigation. They establish what the safety community understood about a hazard, what precautions experienced professionals considered standard practice, and what a reasonably prudent party should have known well before the incident. My analysis regularly draws on:

• ASTM F1637, Standard Practice for Safe Walking Surfaces
• ANSI/ASSP A1264.2, slip resistance on walking and working surfaces
• ANSI/ASSP Z10 and ISO 45001, occupational health and safety management systems
• ANSI B11 series machine safety standards and ANSI/ITSDF B56.1 for powered industrial trucks
• NFPA codes addressing life safety and facility conditions
• Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) recommended lighting practices

When the question is not whether a rule was technically broken but whether the response to a known hazard reflected accepted practice, these standards provide the framework an expert uses to answer it.

Every matter is different, but the analysis typically examines some combination of the following:

• The specific hazard involved and whether it was recognizable, recurring, or concealed
• Whether the hazard was reasonably foreseeable based on industry knowledge, prior incidents, and available guidance
• The adequacy of hazard identification practices, inspections, and documentation
• Safety program effectiveness, including training content, supervision, and enforcement of safe work practices
• Whether corrective measures taken before the incident were reasonable, timely, and consistent with accepted practice
• How the conduct at issue compares against applicable consensus standards and recognized industry custom

The output of that analysis is a defensible opinion on whether the responsible party met the standard of care, supported by the standards, documents, and facts of the case rather than generalities.

Workplace injuries where compliance was clean. An employer met its regulatory obligations, yet a worker was seriously hurt. The question becomes whether the hazard was foreseeable and whether industry practice called for more than the minimum the regulation required.

Injuries to non-employees. Contractors, temporary workers, vendors, delivery drivers, and members of the public injured in industrial and commercial environments. These matters often fall outside OSHA’s employer-employee framework entirely and rest on standard of care analysis.

Slip, trip, and fall and walkway hazard matters. Surface conditions, inspection practices, and walkway design evaluated against ASTM and ANSI standards. For matters centered on property owner duty, see my dedicated premises liability expert witness page.

Equipment and industrial operations incidents. Machine guarding, lockout/tagout, powered industrial trucks, and material handling evaluated against the consensus standards that define safe design and operation.

Safety program and training adequacy. Whether written programs, training delivery, and supervision reflected what the profession recognizes as effective rather than what merely satisfied a checkbox.

Not all safety professionals are effective expert witnesses. The ability to form defensible opinions, prepare clear written reports, and withstand vigorous cross-examination requires operational depth, regulatory fluency, and communication skill. Bryan brings all three.

With more than 15 years of hands-on EHS leadership across manufacturing, logistics, and commercial operations, including global leadership roles, Bryan has operated at every level of workplace safety. He has implemented multi-site safety programs, conducted complex accident investigations, and evaluated safety management systems in real-world environments. His opinions reflect that operational context, not academic theory.

Bryan holds the Certified Safety Professional (CSP) designation from the Board of Certified Safety Professionals, widely recognized as the gold standard credential in occupational safety, along with the Certified Safety and Health Official (CSHO) and Associate in Risk Management (ARM) designations. He also holds a Master of Science in Occupational Safety & Health and an MBA. As an adjunct professor of occupational safety, he teaches the measurement and evaluation of safety performance, the same skill set that makes complex technical issues clear to a jury.

Bryan is available for retention by plaintiff and defense counsel nationwide.

Engaging Bryan for your matter is a straightforward process:

• Initial consultation — contact Bryan to discuss the case facts, the relevant safety issues, and whether the matter falls within his areas of expertise. Initial consultations are handled promptly, typically within one business day
• Document review — Bryan reviews all available case materials including incident reports, applicable regulatory and industry standards, medical documentation, witness statements, photographs, and any prior safety audits or program documentation
• Expert report — Bryan prepares a written report setting forth his opinions, the factual and regulatory basis for those opinions, and the standards that apply to the specific matter
• Deposition and trial support — Bryan is available for deposition preparation, deposition testimony, and trial testimony as the case requires

Early engagement is strongly recommended. Involving a qualified premises liability expert witness during case development, before depositions are taken, allows counsel to identify key technical issues early, frame discovery more effectively, and avoid gaps in the evidentiary record that are difficult to close later.

To discuss a potential matter, contact Seek Safety Consulting directly or review the Expert Witness FAQ for answers to common questions.