Products Labeling / Warnings Expert Witnesses: 21

The four PhD and registered PEs at Miller Engineering are celebrating 40 years of Professorships at three universities along with providing services to Government, Insurance, and Industry—through research, publications, presentations, and expert testimony. We have a dedicated office with a full time staff of engineers, researchers, and technical writers. The span of our collective academic and experiential expertise covers well the Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical, Agricultural, Industrial, Human Factors, Ergonomic and Safety fields of engineering. The areas listed below are from actual projects completed in our 40 years of history. 

Kristopher J. Seluga, PE, is a Mechanical Engineering, Accident Reconstruction, Biomechanics, and Safety Expert with over 20 years of experience. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Mechanical Engineering department at MIT where he worked on the development of novel three-dimensional printing technologies.

Mr. Seluga is also a licensed Professional Engineer in New York and Connecticut, and has served as a member of the ANSI engineering committee for the Z130.1 and Z135 standards for golf cars and PTV’s. His research interests and peer reviewed publications span the topics of Motor Vehicle Dynamics, Product Safety, and Biomechanics.

Litigation Support - Mr. Seluga has been working as a forensic engineer at Technology Associates since 2001. He has investigated 100s of accidents for both plaintiffs and defendants. Mr. Seluga has been qualified to testify as an expert in state and federal court and is experienced in testifying in depositions and trials. He has successfully defeated Daubert / Frye challenges and can prepare and explain compelling exhibits at trial.

Areas of Expertise:

More than 40 years experience: defective packaging; unreasonably dangerous products; failure-to-warn; materials-handling; warehousing; cargo loading and securement; falling cargo; insurance claims for loss or damaged cargo; falling merchandise; patent infringement; trade-dress infringement. Has testified in state and federal courts and knows how to connect with a jury. Has worked for Plaintiffs and Defendants. Services: consulting; analysis; cite inspections; exemplar testing; opining; report writing; testifying. Long list of attorney references. Self-employed consultant. Former employee at Fortune 100 firms. Former university instructor. Many published articles and speaking engagements. Knows how to combine theory and practice.

Gary R. Coburn is an award-winning Restaurant Executive with 40 years of experience creating, opening, running, and advising hundreds of full service restaurants, limited service, quick-service, bars and nightclubs. Additional expertise in restaurant franchising and commercial kitchen design/build from remodels to ground up including conceptual development, viability and business interruption.

With over four decades in the industry, Mr. Coburn has held positions as VP of National Accounts and Design Build for the largest commercial kitchen and distribution company in the country to, Director of Operations, President, COO, Executive Director of Food Services and owner operator. His management experience has included supervising more than 2,000 employees, including 170 managers, along with overseeing consulting assignments for numerous companies.

Clients Include: Joe's Crab Shack, Cask ‘n Cleaver, Lord Charlie’s, El Gato Gordo, Pizza Pronto, Safari Bar Restaurant, Shark Club, Bull Dog Grill, Stronghouse, Pangea, The Ballroom, Juarez Grill, Dickerson’s Club 29, Yucatan Liquor Stand, Zepp’s Atomic Tex Mex, Cabo Grill, Angel Stadium, In Cahoots, The Ball Room, Slick Willie’s, Rodeo, Jake’s, Bobs on the Bay, Crabby Bob’s Seafood, PizzaRev, Honolulu Harry’s, Lahaina Mai Tai Lounge, Canyon Grill, Campagnia, Huey’s Grill & Brewery, Gladstone’s Long Beach, Pro’s Ranch Markets, Lily's Doughnuts & Pops

Litigation Support - Mr. Coburn has served as an expert witness in numerous restaurant-related cases. His services are available to attorneys for plaintiff and defense and include site inspection, thorough reporting, depositions, and trial testimony as needed.

Areas of Expertise:

Recent cases retained by Plaintiff:

• Guest incident regarding standard of care including safety, protocols / procedures, adequate warnings, and related issues
• Safety and security practices for proprietors regarding foreseeability of harm, likelihood of injury, notice and reasonable intervention 
• Loss of income, conceptual and goodwill impact based on providing adequate parking

Recent cases retained by Defendant:

•     Loss of income and the feasibility of the concept and the viability of opening the restaurant
•     Slip and fall and the ensuring safety of its patrons and duty to use reasonable care in keeping premises reasonably safe
•     Maintenance, industry standards of furniture handling and procurement, foreseeability of harm, and   likelihood of injury from lack of procedures

View RCI's Consulting Profile.

R. Kevin Smith PE, BSME, MMAE, has been a specialist in Engineering Forensic Safety and Design for 35 years. He has consulted on over a 1,000 matters nationwide. Mr. Smith is a registered professional engineer and holds a BSME and MMAE from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He is board certified forensic engineer through the National Academy of Forensic Engineers. He specializes in Material Handling Equipment Safety, including lift trucks, dock safety, truck loading, conveyors, and aerial work platform safety. Mr. has been actively involved as a member of the committee that writes the Safety Standard for Low Lift and High Lift Trucks (ASME/ANSI B56.1) for over 30 years. He also serves on the B56.6 committee (rough terrain lift trucks) and the ANSI A92.5 and A92.6 subcommittees (self-propelled elevating work platforms). Litigation Support - Mr. Smith formerly worked for Triodyne, Inc. for over 15 years as a forensic engineer/principal engineer. As President of R. K. Smith Engineering Inc., for over 25 years, he currently has a laboratory for examination and testing, and owns or has access to varied testing equipment and tools. Kevin Smith has testified at depositions and trials on several hundred matters. He has performed hundreds of investigations into product failures involving injury and property damage, and has reconstructed numerous accidents. His expertise is available to counsel representing both Plaintiff and Defendant. Mr. Smith also was previously on the Adjunct Math faculty at Prairie State College for 13 years. Areas of Expertise:

View R. Kevin Smith's Consulting Profile.

Dr. J. P. Purswell, PhD, PE, CPE has extensive experience in Human Factors, Ergonomics, and Safety Engineering. He holds a doctorate in Industrial & Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech. He has taught Safety Engineering and Ergonomics in the Industrial Engineering Department at CSU-Pueblo since 1999. 

A member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and the American Industrial Hygiene Association, Dr. Purswell also served as the Chair of the Industrial Engineers PE exam from 2005 to 2009. He continues to serve on the committee which is responsible for the preparation of the national professional engineering examination in industrial engineering. 

Dr. Purswell is the author of more than 20 publications and presentations on Product Safety, Occupational Safety, Printed Warnings, and Auditory Warnings. Examples of products addressed include silica, asbestos, cleaning chemicals, gasoline containers, and recreational equipment. Dr. Purswell maintains NIST-calibrated equipment for the measurement of light, sound, force, and whole-body and hand-arm vibration in addition to standard photo and video equipment. 

Litigation Support - An Expert Witness in the legal industry since 1997, Dr. Purswell has been qualified as an expert in state and federal courts across the nation in safety engineering, including safety analysis techniques such as Fault Tree Analysis and FMEA as well as product warnings / instructions and OSHA compliance issues. His services include site inspections, document review, drafting Rule 26-compliant reports, deposition, and trial testimony. He has been retained by attorneys for both Plaintiff (40%) and Defense (60%) more than 100 times, has been deposed approximately 50 times, and has testified at trial over 20 times. 

Areas of Expertise:

View Dr. Purswell's Consulting Profile.

Claire K. Sand, PhD, is a Global Packaging Technology  Leader with over 35 years of Food Science and Packaging experience. 

Dr. Sand is the owner and founder of Packaging Technology and Research, LLC.   She is also an Adjunct Professor at Michigan State University and CalPoly, and a monthly contributor to Packaging Digest. 

Dr. Sand's background includes working with Total Quality Marketing, Nestle, General Mills, Kraft Heinz, Safeway, and academia, as well as in basic research, development market research, and marketing in Germany, Colombia, and Thailand.

She is an IFT Fellow, a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement in Food Packaging Award , a member of numerous Editorial Boards, the author of the Packaging Value Chain, and is in several leadership positions.

Litigation Support - Dr. Claire Sand is an experienced food packaging expert witness for attorneys representing plaintiff and defendant. Claire has served as an expert witness in 18 cases since 2016, involving 8 patents, 4 food packaging and food spoilage cases, and 6 other cases.

Her cases include Food and Beverage, Packaging and Labeling, and Patent and Intellectual Property litigation and lawsuits. Dr. Sand is available to consult, construct and write expert reports, serve as expert in depositions and testify.

Areas of Expertise:

• Patent Infringement and Invalidity - including patent infringement, patent invalidity, forensics related to patents and related lawsuits, design and utility patent infringement, food packaging patents, Patent or design infringement
• Trademark, Trade Dress or Trade Secret Disputes
• Food Package Interactions - including food damage and spoilage, food packaging safety, foods and how packaging interacts with food,
• Food Package Design - including flexible film, rigid packaging - bottles, cans jars, etc., semi-rigid packaging- foam trays, Food packaging product development, Integrity of packaged goods for warehousing
• Food Package and Packaging Forensics  - including failure analysis, defective packaging
• Material Science - including paperboard, polymers and plastics
• Probable Cause in Food Packaging Contamination
• Food Package Testing
• Food Packaging FDA Regulations & GMPs
• Food Packaging Machinery / Line Operations

View Packaging Technology Consultants' Business Consulting Profile.

Summary

Stephen (Steve) T. Hopper, PE, is Founder and Principal of Inviscid Consulting. Over more than three decades, Steve has helped hundreds of clients plan and streamline their warehousing, logistics, manufacturing, and distribution operations by driving down operating costs, boosting capacity, improving service levels, mitigating risk, implementing effective supply chain solutions, emphasizing safety, and enhancing the performance of their supply chain resources: people, processes, inventory, facilities, equipment, material handling systems, transportation assets, and supply chain information technology (IT). He has worked with clients ranging from small businesses to Fortune 100 corporations.

Steve earned a Bachelor of Industrial Engineering (BIE) degree from The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and is a board-certified, licensed, registered Professional Engineer (PE). He has served as an expert witness on dozens of cases involving supply chain operations in the US, Canada, and Australia and has advised private equity and venture capital investors. He has also been interviewed by the supply chain industry media, authored articles for industry publications, and spoken at industry events.

Industry Experience

• 3PL / Outsourced distribution and fulfillment
• Apparel / Footwear
• Building materials
• Consumer goods
• Direct-to-consumer / Ecommerce / Catalog
• Food / Beverage / Grocery
• Furniture
• High-tech / Electronics
• Industrial / Automotive / Aerospace
• Mining / Drilling
• Pharmaceutical / Health and life sciences
• Rentals
• Retail
• Reverse logistics / Returns
• Wholesale / General distribution

Supply Chain Solutions Expertise

• Warehouse management systems (WMS)
• Warehouse control systems (WCS)
• Warehouse execution systems (WES)
• Slotting and order picking systems
• Transportation management systems (TMS)
• Labor management systems (LMS) 
• Order management systems (OMS)
• Voice and automatic identification systems
• Equipment, automation, robotics, and software used for handling, packaging, storing, and transporting materials
• Logistics network design & optimization software tools

Education, Certifications, and Associations

• Bachelor of Industrial Engineering (BIE), The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)
• Board-certified, licensed, registered Professional Engineer (PE)

Meyer R. Rosen, FRSC, FAIC, CPC, CChE, is a leading creative consultant for the Legal Profession and specialty Chemical / Personal Care Industries. He is the Founder & President of Interactive Consulting, Inc. (www.chemicalconsult.com). 

Meyer is a Forensic Litigation expert for both plaintiff and defense in hazardous chemicals, products liability, personal injury, fires and explosions, intellectual property and trade secret cases. He also provides Technical Marketing, New Business Development, Technical Consulting and Professional Editing services internationally to the Specialty Chemical, Personal Care, Cosmetic, Pharmaceutical, Medical Device, and Allied Industries. 

Meyer also has 15 years of experience as a Professor of Fire Technology at Westchester Community College. Mr. Rosen is Editor- in- Chief of Harry’s Cosmeticology, 9th Ed. A 2,600-page trilogy on all aspects of the cosmetic industry (www.harryscosmeticology.com)’ as well as being Emeritus-Editor-in-Chief for EuroCosmetics magazine (Germany) and Editor-in-Chief of the Delivery System Handbook. 

Technology Expertise (Intellectual Property/Chemical Industry): Mr. Rosen provides consultation and litigation support in patent infringement, trade secret issues, and licensing matters. His scientific areas of expertise include, but are not limited to:

• Organosilicones: Surfactants, Emulsions, Foams, Antifoams, Silane Coupling Agents
• Water Soluble Polymers, Poly(ethylene oxide), Polyethylene Glycol, and Poly (acrylamide) and Water Insoluble Polymers
• Colloid and Surface Chemistry: Stability of Dispersions, Wetting & Spreading Phenomena, Suspensions & Emulsions, Clays, Paint & Coatings, Personal Care, Cosmetics
• Flocculating and Coagulating Agents
• Applied Rheology, Rheology Modification of Aqueous & Non-Aqueous Media

Certifications:

• Chartered Chemist and Fellow: Royal Society of Chemistry – London
• Nationally Certified Professional Chemist and Professional Chemical Engineer
• Fire and Explosion Expert (Advanced Training)
• Fellow: American College of Forensic Examiners
• Fellow: American Institute of Chemists
• Diplomate: American Board of Forensic Examiners
• Diplomate: American Board of Forensic Engineering and Technology

View Meyer Rosen's Consulting Profile.

Auto • Airbag • Bicycle • Boating • Bus • Chair Design / Safety / Failure • Diving and Drowning • Electrocution and Shock • Elevator • Escalator • Fires and Explosions • Forklift • Gate • Golf Cart • Highway Design and Safety • Ladder • Law Enforcement • Lighting & Illumination • Loading Dock • Metallurgy • Motorcycle • Paintgun • Playground Safety • Press • Ramps • Rollercoaster • Safety Guards • Scaffolding • Seatbelts • Slip / Trip and Fall • Spas • Stairs • Swimming Pool Design and Safety • Tractors • Trailers • Trucks • 3D Scans

Harvey C. Voris’ entire engineering career has been devoted to the Fitness Industry. He has over 35 years of Fitness Equipment Design experience and has been issued 7 U.S. utility patents. Mr. Voris has a Bachelors of Science in Engineering from UCLA with a specialization in Bio Structural Mechanics. 

Mr. Voris' Masters in Engineering is from Cal State Long Beach where he specialized in Fatigue and Failure Analysis. He has spent 21 years devoted to the development and promotion of safety standards for the fitness industry. Mr. Voris has authored numerous standards and has chaired the ASTM committee devoted to fitness standards development since 1995. 

Litigation Support - Mr. Voris provides engineering analysis and accident reconstruction related to consumer and fitness products and facilities. His services are available to attorneys representing both plaintiff and defense. With 35 years of experience, a biomechanics background, and extensive experience in design and product testing, Mr. Voris speaks with authority on the following critical issues:

Product Liability - Patent Development - Patent Infringement - Facility Risk Management - Standards Compliance

View Harvey Voris' Consulting Profile.

Dr. Gerald M. Goldhaber is President & CEO of Goldhaber Research Associates, LLC. Over the past 46 years, he has emerged as one of the nation's leading safety warning communication experts. Dr. Goldhaber has been retained in over 200 lawsuits dealing with the issue of warnings and has written numerous research articles on the subject of effective warning labels. His clients include over 100 of the top 500 corporations in the U.S. and 50 of the top 100 law firms and government agencies including the FDA, USDA, CPSC and the DOD.  He has designed, developed and defended warning labels for International Playtex, Owens Corning Fiberglas, Dr. Pepper Seven Up, Rheem, Otis Elevator, Daikin USA, S. C. Johnson, and the Swimming Pool & ATV Industries.

Dr. Goldhaber has written and edited 11 books on the topic of communication.  His 12th book, MURDER INC.: How Unregulated Industry Kills or Injures Thousands of Americans Every Year...and What You Can Do About It is now in print, was an Amazon Best Seller and named by Kirkus Reviews as one of the top one hundred non-fiction books of 2020.  For the past 14 years, he has published the Goldhaber Warnings Report, which reaches over 10,000 litigators nationwide.  He has served as an analyst for numerous radio and television shows, most recently CNN Tonight. He has been selected as a member of Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World.

Areas of Expertise: 

Product Liability and Personal Injury

Warning Label Research

Warnings and Safety Communications

Dr. Kevin A. Rider, PhD, PE, CPE of Forensic Human Factors, LLC., providing investigations and expert testimony regarding predictable human behavior, particularly as it relates to motor vehicle and pedestrian collisions, premises liability, and slips, trips and falls, the design and use of products, and adequacy of warnings/instructions. His work focuses on identifying the Human Factors Elements that lead to unfortunate incidents, and what should have been done to prevent them. 

Dr. Rider is a Licensed Professional Engineer and Certified Professional Ergonomist, and has studied human movements and behavior, and served as a human factors consultant since 1999, including five years teaching industrial engineering and occupational safety courses at West Virginia University. He has presented at professional conferences, both nationally and abroad, and his research is published and cited in a number of peer-reviewed journals. He continues to serve as a reviewer for conference and journal manuscripts. 

Dr. Rider has testified over 100 times, and excels at educating attorneys and jurors. His services are available to attorneys for both Plaintiff and Defense. 

Areas of Expertise:

• Driver Behavior - Cell Phone Use and other In-Vehicle Distractions
• Product Liability - Design, Guards, Warnings, Adequacy of Instructions
• Premises Liability - Sidewalks, Shopping Centers, Community Parks, Retail Displays
• Slips, Trips, and Falls
• Visibility and Lighting - Illumination and Conspicuity of Objects
• Workplace Safety - Defective Products, Gross Negligence or Misconduct, Third Party Actions on Worksites
• Machine Guarding 

.

Khalid Sorensen, PhD, is a highly accomplished technology leader in Automation, Mechatronics, Motion Control, Manufacturing, Machine Vision, and Human-Machine Interaction. He has over 20 years of experience developing and deploying world-class mechatronic, motion control, and automation solutions.

Dr. Sorensen has directed the development and implementation of 100s of complex, multi-disciplinary mechatronic systems for high-profile industry leaders including Toyota, Ford, Alcoa, Caterpillar, Boeing, NuScale, and many others, and high-profile facilities including Fukushima and Chernobyl.

Litigation Support - Dr. Sorensen has testified in numerous Product Liability and IP disputes – both at the Federal and District court levels, as well as the ITC, USPTO, and US Customs and Border Protection.

Areas of Expertise:

Career Highlights:

• Founded a technology company where he invented and was the Chief Architect of Expertoperator^TM, Safemove^TM, Automove^TM, and Cranevision^TM – technology known within the primary metals, automotive, and heavy-equipment sectors for enhancing crane safety, productivity, and ease-of-use; Developed state-of-the-art, on-line, time-optimal trajectory synthesis software for Cartesian machines - key drivers in the acquisition of his company 5 years after inception by a global leader in automation.
• Served as CTO at PaR Systems, a world-class supplier of large-scale robotic automation, control, advanced manufacturing, and nuclear-handling solutions.
• Founded Finity Engineering, which provides design, analysis, consulting, and litigation support services in the areas of robotics, automation, and mechatronics.
• Adjunct Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. Teaches various engineering topics including Dynamics, Controls, Vibrations, Mechatronics, the Design Process, Product Development, Engineering IP, Product Liability, and others.
• Invited talks at premiere institutions globally including MIT, Kumoh National Univ. of Tech, Korea Atomic Energy Research Inst., Hyung Hee Univ., Huazhong Univ. of Science & Tech.

View Finity Engineering's Business Consulting Profile.