Warnings on Trial: Challenging Safety Hierarchy, ANSI Compliance, and Causation Arguments

Failure-to-warn litigation often involves recurring questions about what makes a warning adequate, whether compliance with established standards is sufficient, and whether a different warning may have prevented an incident.

Join Dr. Farheen Khan, a leading expert in human factors, for the first session of Secretariat's Human Factors webinar series. This session will examine three common allegations in failure-to-warn litigation and provide a human factors framework for evaluating each of these claims from an evidence-based perspective.

During this session, attendees will explore:

• The claim that warnings are inherently the "last and weakest" line of defense, and how warnings fit within the broader safety hierarchy.
• The frequently asserted connection between ANSI Z535 compliance and warning adequacy, including why formatting alone should not be conflated with effectiveness. 
• The allegation that a different or "better" warning would have prevented an incident, with a focus on causation and the multiple behavioral steps required for a warning to influence outcomes.

Dr. Khan will draw on human factors research and real-world examples to help attendees understand how user behavior, context, and decision-making drive compliance.