Slip and fall “expert” witnesses in the United States typically use either the English XL Variable Incidence Tribometer (VIT) or the Brungraber Mark IIIB, which is incredibly frightening considering that neither of these two instruments have a published, peer-reviewed test method in any country on earth, and both (the English XL and Brungraber Mark II, a slightly earlier version of the Mark IIIB with very few differences other than the name) have been found to lack precision by the ASTM International (American Society for Testing and Materials) and OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration). The lack of precision makes them both great devices for manufacturing manipulated and bogus test results, but they should not be allowed in our courtrooms since they have been found to be lacking scientific precision and they don’t have peer-reviewed published standards for their use.
Lack of Precision
The English XL and Brungraber Mark II/Mark IIIB “instruments” are amazingly and strangely popular among American slip and fall “experts”, especially considering these devices don’t have peer-reviewed published test methods for their use in any nation. Users of these devices have found that they often favor the defense, saying that slippery floors aren’t slippery. Most have also found that they can easily manipulate their machines to get “slippery” readings on floors that are not necessarily slippery at all. Both the English XL and Brungraber Mark II (also called the PIAST, or Portable Inclinable Articulated Strut Tribometer) devices have had their ASTM test methods withdrawn for their lack of precision. How these expert “liars for hire” continue to be allowed into courtrooms with these bogus, unscientific devices truly boggles the mind.
Test method ASTM F1679 was created for use of the English XL and was first published by the ASTM in 1996. ASTM F1677 was created for the use of the Brungraber Mark II the exact same year. (They are both now quietly listed as “historical” standards in muted gray printing on the ASTM website, which means they were withdrawn. See below for what the website used to say about WHY they were withdrawn.)
There are apparently insignificant differences between the Brungraber Mark II and the Mark IIIB. It certainly looks like the same instrument, but with grooves etched into the rubber slider, which likely does nothing to improve the inherent precision problem that the ASTM and OSHA found to be unacceptable over two decades ago. The most important difference between the Brungraber Mark II and the Brungraber Mark IIIB (besides the color of the instrument) seems to be the name change, which means they are now working with a device that has no published, peer-reviewed test method in any nation “because (as it’s users like to claim) it’s a patented device”, which excludes it from being able to have an ASTM standard. This is as opposed to an instrument that has a test method that was withdrawn due to a lack of precision, which was the fate of the Brungraber Mark II (which incidentally also happened to be a “patented device” since 1988). The main purpose of the English XL and Brungraber Mark IIIB is creating fake, fraudulent data for lawyers. They aren’t used to help stop slips from happening.
The ASTM and OSHA Rejects the English XL and Brungraber Mark II
Both the F1677 and F1679 ASTM standards were incorporated by OSHA in 2001 to help with a problem in the steel industry where too many construction workers were slipping off steel girders to their deaths, though OSHA noted at the time that the test methods had not yet achieved supplying the required ASTM statements of precision and bias. At this point, the ASTM had been asking for a reasonable precision statement for these devices for five years. Under ASTM rules, these standards were provisional pending completion and approval of precision and bias statements.
OSHA then ruled in 2006, after a further five years of being misled and fooled by English XL and Brungraber Mark II/Mark IIIB users: “…Most significantly, there is a high probability that the test methods [ASTM F1677 and F1679] will not be validated through statements of precision and bias by the effective date and that ASTM, an industry standards association, is likely to withdraw them shortly thereafter…Therefore, the Agency [OSHA] has decided to revoke it.” OSHA was forced to stop endorsing the use of these devices to help the steel industry and others determine safe levels of slip resistance for floors and steel beams because the instruments lacked precision, and their users seemed to be making lame excuses as to why ten years wasn’t enough time to run one acceptable interlaboratory study showing they had the reasonable precision and bias required for ASTM standards. The professional courtroom lairs who prefer these devices kept saying that “the dog ate their precision and bias statement”, and everyone got tired of hearing that lame lie/excuse.
Thereafter, on September 30, 2006, ASTM Committee on Standards (CoS) withdrew ASTM F1679 and ASTM F1677 “for failure to include an approved precision statement (violating Section A21 of the Form and Style for ASTM standards), and for including reference to proprietary apparatus where alternatives exist.” The English XL and Brungraber Mark II or Mark IIIB “instruments” have never again appeared by name in any other OSHA, ASTM, or ANSI standard, and neither has it appeared or been endorsed by standards publishing entities in Europe, the United Kingdom, Asia, or anywhere else in the world. These devices have never achieved the precision and bias statement required, after over 30 years (since 1996 when their “provisional” ASTM standards were published) of having the opportunity to run just one peer-reviewed interlaboratory study that would satisfy this requirement. It’s said by historians that Jesus of Nazareth likely lived to be around 30 years old, but 30 years wasn’t enough time for these professional courtroom liars to run one acceptable interlaboratory study showing their devices had precision.
So the English XL VIT and Brungraber Mark II and their test methods were revoked and abandoned by both OSHA and the ASTM for failing to prove that they were scientific, precise, or reliable instruments to measure floor slip resistance. This alone makes them inadmissible in court, but we’re not done yet!
In a published book by scholar and researcher In-Ju Kim called Pedestrian Fall Safety Assessments: Improved Understanding on Slip Resistance Measurements and Investigations, In-Ju also notes that the ASTM website stated in 2006 that F1677 and F1679 were withdrawn (see page 47 of his book) “for failure to include an approved precision statement.” He goes on to state that, “Using these two instruments, different labs showed very different answers on identical tiles amongst interlaboratory studies. These findings suggested that both test methods [for the Brungraber Mark II and English XL] were unreliable and unable to provide ‘reasonable precision statements’ for slip resistance evaluations.”
From the same page of Mr. Kim’s Pedestrian Fall Safety Assessments, “However, the English XL Variable Incidence Tribometer (VIT) is still used commonly in the US, mostly by professional experts, who have discovered that the test results can be considerably influenced by how the actuating button is pressed by the user.” From page 108 of this same book, he says the English XL and Brungraber Mark II “are shown to yield different results for the same test.”
Here starting on page 8 you’ll find a published study that proved the English XL is incapable of being a reliable scientific device for assessing the slip resistance of tiles in a lab study. It’s also available through ASTM eBooks here.
Experts Must Use Science That is Published and Subject to Peer Review
Most courts have some sort of requirements for who is allowed to be considered an “expert” in a particular field of study. In Nevada, for example, the Supreme Court requires an expert opinion to assist the trier of fact, being both relevant and the product of reliable methodology. This means the expert’s opinion must be:
(1) within a recognized field of expertise;
(2) testable and has been tested;
(3) published and subject to peer review;
(4) generally accepted in the scientific community;
(5) based on more particularized facts rather than assumption, conjecture, or generalization.
See Hallmark v. Eldridge, 124 Nev. 492,498, 189 P. 3d 646,650 (2008).
The failure to provide a precision and bias statement acceptable to the ASTM literally means that the two machines produced unreliable and inconsistent results, meaning repeatability and reproducibility in testing done under laboratory conditions produced unreliable and unscientific results. But in 2020, a published study (organized mostly by Mark IIIB users) proved once and for all that the English XL and Brungraber Mark IIIB lack precision. We’re done here, right?! No wait…there’s more!
Since both the English XL and Mark IIIB both do not have a published, peer-reviewed test method, and both have a published study showing they lack precision, it would seem impossible that a judge would allow such nonsense into a courtroom. Why not allow an “expert” to testify that the pool water in question was 80 degrees because the “expert” has a big toe that can measure water temperature? If an expert’s big toe cannot be considered a scientific device by the court, then neither should the English XL or Mark IIIB.
The methodology and related opinions these unscrupulous full-time “experts” attest to in case after case in American courtrooms are not testable nor have they been tested, they are not published nor subject to peer review, they are not generally (or at all) accepted in the international scientific community, and are not based upon facts, but are usually based upon misapplications of science, assumption, conjecture and misleading claims that their devices have been “validated” using a validation technique that they created themselves. The validation technique they created is ASTM F2508, and it does not validate a device at all. It was created to mislead the court, and is absolute nonsense.
ASTM F2508 Created by Mark IIIB and English XL Users to Mislead the Court
ASTM F2508 was published by the ASTM F13 committee based on a study that was done by full-time slip and fall expert witnesses soon after F1677 and F1679 were withdrawn in 2006. These “experts” needed a way to get their devices allowed into court now that their devices were without a provisionally “published”, (but never) peer-reviewed test method. Their test methods had been withdrawn by the ASTM and abandoned by OSHA.
Most of the authors of the study were users of the Brungraber Mark IIIB. And wouldn’t you know it?! The Brungraber Mark II and Mark IIIB were two of the four tribometers (floor slip resistance test instruments) that “passed” this misguided “validation test” described in the USC study, which later became the basis for ASTM F2508. (The other two testers that “passed” were both British Pendulum Testers. Seven tribometers failed to “pass”, including the English XL.) The study was reported in Powers CM, Mark Blanchette, John Brault “Validation of Walkway Tribometers: Establishing a Reference Standard,” Journal of Forensic Sciences, Vol 55, No. 2, March 2010.
In 2022, Mr. Blanchette and Mr. Brault comprised two-thirds of a very busy “forensic expert consulting firm specializing in the biomechanics of human motion & injuries, walkway safety, and accident reconstruction,” whose website boasts them being involved in over 9,000 lawsuits and providing court testimony over 400 times. Just these three guys?! Wow! How do they find time to run a tribometer “study” that made their instrument appear “validated”? The third author, CM Powers, works for USC and provided the facility for the study to be carried out. Is it any wonder that the two main organizers and publishers of the “study” got exactly the result they were hoping for to help legitimize the business they run together providing slip and fall testimony for personal injury lawyers and highly-paid insurance company defense lawyers using the Brungraber Mark II and Mark IIIB? Curious, isn’t it?
In the “study”, four different flooring samples were chosen. Eleven different tribometers were brought into the lab and experts in their use tested the four tiles. The tribometer users ranked the four tiles in the order of slipperiness using the results from their testing. Then human subjects (who were effectively blindfolded) walked across the samples, and the number of micro-slips and slips that occurred as the human subjects walked across the samples were recorded for each flooring sample. Then the four samples were ranked in order of slipperiness based on the human subject part of the study. The Brungraber Mark IIIB (surprise!) and the British Pendulum (which has a peer-reviewed, published test standard in over 50 nations on five continents and has been in use for over 50 years) were the two instruments that had correctly ranked the four flooring samples in the correct order of slipperiness BEFORE the human subjects had done their part.
The English XL VIT is one of the seven tribometers that failed to “pass” the tribometer “validation” criteria in the initial research. After the “correct order” of the tiles were published, the English XL users were able to now get the “correct” answers (which of course are different answers than they got BEFORE the study was published), and so the English XL users will now claim their instrument has been “validated” through ASTM F2508. This just proves that their instrument can be manipulated to get different results for the same sample once they know what answer they need to get – that’s the only thing ASTM F2508 has validated for the English XL. Pay an English XL user to say whatever you want them to say – they’ll get the answer you want. This has been proven by the USC study combined with their ability to now get totally different answers before and after the USC study on the exact same tiles.
The Mark IIIB users, since their instrument has no published test standard anywhere on earth, will also make the claim that their instrument is “validated through ASTM F2508”, but this standard does not validate anything as a scientific instrument at all. Imagine you have three cups of water. One visibly has ice in it, one does not, and the third looks like it has steam coming off the top of the water. If you can tell by looking at the three glasses what the “correct order” of the water temperatures in these glasses are (ice cold, room temperature, and steaming hot), then are your eyes now validated as thermometers? That’s precisely what ASTM F2508 tries to claim for tribometers! Read ASTM F2508! It’s true! And it is complete nonsense. Anyone who believes ASTM F2508 validates an instrument as being a scientific device should be immediately jailed for perjury. No-one can be that stupid as to believe this is true.
A scientific instrument called a thermometer will not only be able to rank different glasses of water in their order of temperature, but they will give us a correct temperature reading (usually in Fahrenheit or Celsius) that can be verified by the international scientific community. For instance, a thermometer might tell us that the water with ice has a temperature of 32 degrees Fahrenheit, the room temperature water will perhaps have a reading of 75 degrees, and the water with the steam coming off the top is perhaps 180 degrees. Different thermometers that are valid scientific devices will always give us these correct answers within a degree or two, or they cannot be considered valid scientific devices.
ASTM F2508 says that if a thermometer (or tribometer, in the case of F2508) can rank the waters in order of temperature, that’s good enough to make it a valid thermometer to be used in court testimony. In the same way, if a tribometer can rank four tiles in their order of slipperiness (with the correct answers already published), then that tribometer is now “validated.” F2508 really is that ridiculous. According to the rules set forth in ASTM F2508, after all, each of our eyeballs could be considered thermometers. Somehow that nonsense has been fooling judges and juries all over the USA for over a decade now.
Apparently working with a habitually-lying sociopath isn’t easy. I’m not saying anyone in this particular scenario/business is a sociopath who lies in court for a living, but I just imagine that someone with those traits might be a difficult person to work with on a daily basis. After all, sociopaths who get innocent people hurt and killed by making sure ASTM F13 has no presently published test method for assessing the slip risk of a floor might be considered a sociopath. Interestingly, Mr. Brault and Mr, Blanchette (both Mark IIIB users) are two of the most recent heads of the F13 committee, and so is John Leffler, who manufacturers the Brungraber Mark IIIB device. Odd coincidence, perhaps? The past three people in charge of publishing ASTM slip resistance test methods in the USA all used the Mark IIIB as courtroom “liars for hire”, and all were unable to publish ANY test method during their time at the head of this ASTM committee (not even one for the Mark IIIB they use daily!?)
Mr. Blanchette and Mr. Rutledge, two of the three people that used to comprise Semper Scientific when this post was first published less than two years ago, have now moved on to be the two leading partners at Paragon Forensics. They boast on their website that they’re “experts” in using a device in courtrooms made by their friend Mr. John Leffler, the Brungraber Mark IIIB (which has zero published test methods in any country on earth because it clearly lacks the same precision as the Brungraber Mark II did – BECAUSE IT’S ESSENTIALLY THE SAME DEVICE RE-NAMED AND PAINTED A DIFFERENT COLOR). In the case of the Brungraber Mark II, it has a withdrawn ASTM standard in the same field of study that has a published, peer-reviewed test method for the pendulum DCOF tester in over 50 nations on five continents. They don’t use that device for some reason, even though it is accepted the world over as the most reliable and most well-researched floor slip test device on earth.
No, Mr. Blanchette, Mr. Brault, Mr. Leffler and Mr. Rutledge all prefer a test device that has never been scrutinized by their peers, has been rejected by the international floor slip resistance testing community, and has never taken part in an interlaboratory study. Why? Ask them. You’ll be amazed at the world they live in where ice is warmer than water and the sky is purple.
Interestingly, when I published ASTM E303-22 through a different ASTM committee, which utilizes the pendulum dynamic coefficient of friction (DCOF) tester to assess real-world slip resistance of floors using over 50 years of research in well over 50 nations, Mr. Blanchette and Mr. Leffler (the manufacturer of the Mark IIIB) teamed up with other Mark IIIB and English XL users to have me removed from the ASTM. No joke! They had me kicked out of the ASTM for publishing the first ASTM floor slip resistance test method published in over 30 years (using the same pendulum tester that has a peer-reviewed, published test method in over 50 nations), and the only test method used to assess the safety of wet (or otherwise contaminated) flooring available through the ASTM today. The only other slip resistance test published through the ASTM is a scam called ASTM D2047, which measures how slippery a clean and dry floor is to someone standing still on the floor. ASTM D2047 couldn’t be a more obvious scam to fool flooring consumers. This is the ASTM, folks. If you trusted that their test methods are based on good science and research, you might want to think again. There are some good ASTM test methods, such as ASTM E303-22, but some are just fraudulent scams published by bad people.
The pendulum is easily the most agreed-upon, most reliable slip resistance tool ever created for assessing floor slip safety. When I went behind the backs of the Mark IIIB and English XL users to create a useful safety assessment test method, their anger drove them to work together to create lies (which is what they do for a living, remember) to ban me from the ASTM. Can you believe that?! Way to go, ASTM!! They claimed calling them “liars for hire” was “unprofessional”, and therefore I needed to be removed from the organization altogether. I argue calling them “liars for hire” is simply the truth. I’ve seen them lie in depositions and in courtroom testimony with my own eyes. They lie under oath for money. I recently read a report from one of these experts who admitted, as part of the report, that the rate for this expert’s time was $635 per hour. Wow. Good lies cost good money!
Remember, these guy work almost 100% of the time for insurance companies, and so their job, by definition, is to say every floor they encounter that has caused a horrific injury to someone who is now trying to recover some money through a lawsuit for their wheelchair, lost wages, loss of the ability to ever work again, loss of the ability to ever have sex with their wife again, etc., etc. is not slippery. That’s what they’re paid to do. They are simply insurance company “liars for hire.” People don’t generally, while sober and paying attention, slip on a safe floor and not ever be able to ever walk or work again. But these guys gleefully put their suits on and prance into courtrooms week in and week out to make a living saying all those floors that caused those life-changing injuries weren’t slippery using their unproven and mysterious “science”. Indeed, the Brungraber Mark IIIB is a mysterious and unproven device, and your chances of seeing it in action for a case where these guys are working for a plaintiff (which rarely happens) is zero to none. They do sometimes work for plaintiffs, but they often won’t allow anyone to watch their testing when they do, strangely. One lawyer told me she was asked to sit in her car across the street at least 50 yards away from where Mr. John Brault was taking readings for a plaintiff attorney. Why so shy, Mr. Brault?!?! Perhaps he was afraid he wasn’t going to get the same readings that were going to be in his report? Remember, this instrument has been shown to lack precision.
The pendulum tester has been shown to have precision and has a published, peer-reviewed test method in over 50 nations on five continents, and it has been helping to stop preventable slips and falls for over 75 years now. Why not use that obviously trustworthy, useful and accurate device? You’ll have to ask these “experts” themselves. Perhaps it’s not easy to manipulate a pendulum to get the favorable answers for lawyers they’re paid to get? Maybe they’re just “rebels” who don’t like using the science the rest of the world uses? Your guess is as good as mine, but these are people who are rejecting the agreed-upon science of the world to get American lawyers the data they want. That’s a fact. And that almost certainly says they’re well-paid “liars for hire”.
By contrast, Sotter Engineering has been testing floors for Ford Motorcars (in three of their Mexican manufacturing plants), the Porsche Experience, Disney, Unilever, the United States Navy and Space Force, General Motors, Amazon, Apple, Great Wolf Lodges, the Cities of San Francisco, Boston, New York, Oakland and Los Angeles, Universal Studios, the Ritz Carlton, Google, Kohler Baths, Masco, QuikTrip Convenience Stores, the YMCA, Viejas Casino, Carnival Cruise Lines, EJ Gallo Wines, Chik-fil-A, Virgin Voyages, Raising Cane’s, Royal Caribbean, Montage Resorts, Polyflor, Polycor, and well over a thousand other clients in many countries to help them stop slips on their properties using the pendulum DCOF tester. All that experience has made us one of the world’s most accurate and reliable slip resistance test labs today. None of those companies requested testing with the Brungraber Mark IIIB or the English XL, but I do recall a Hilton Resort in Panama City Beach, Florida telling me that they did hire a guy with an English XL to assess the slip resistance of their floors, and the answers he gave them were nonsense. He said the slippery floors they were working on solutions for weren’t slippery, and he told them the floors they had no issues with for ten years were too slippery. They fired that guy. They then did some homework online and found Sotter Engineering, and had us test their floors and tubs for several years, flying me across the country twice a year.
The Bogus “Everyone Knows 0.50 Is Considered Safe” Misinformation
Full time slip and fall “liars for hire” will often cite in their testimony that it’s “generally accepted that a coefficient of friction of 0.50 or greater is considered adequate for safety [on a level floor].” This is nonsense. Back in the days when vinyl floors were waxed (floor coatings made of actual wax are no longer used these days), the James Machine was used to test the dry static coefficient of friction (SCOF) of floor waxes. Static testing measures how slippery a floor is to someone who is standing still (static) on it. How does one slip while standing still on a clean and dry floor? Who knows? Who cares? That’s a totally misleading and bogus test for floor slipperiness. When I pressured the heads of the ASTM to withdraw this meaningless and fraudulent “safety scam”, I was removed from the ASTM a couple months later. Go figure!
Despite the entire world of experts in this field of study rejecting static coefficient of friction (SCOF) testing decades ago to assess real-world floor slip resistance safety, there is an ASTM and Underwriters Laboratories (UL) SCOF test on clean and dry floors still in use today. Test methods such as ASTM D2047 and UL 410 are blatant scams and fraudulent “safety assessments” of floors, and the people doing the test and reporting the results on their flooring’s marketing materials like to ignore the fact that the test was created 75 years ago to test clean and dry floor wax, and that it isn’t a measure of the slipperiness of a floor when someone is moving across it, and it isn’t testing a floor that may be wet or otherwise lubricated (where 99.999% of slip and fall injuries occur). The ASTM test method itself is called “Standard Test Method for Static Coefficient of Friction of Polish-Coated Flooring Surfaces as Measured by the James Machine”. So to use this test on anything other than a “polish-coated flooring surface” would be ignoring the name of the test and what it can be used for, and essentially lying to consumers. Here is the largest manufacturer of flooring in the United States scamming consumers by using this test to claim that it “passes” a “slip resistance” test – ASTM D2047. The American tile manufacturing business can be a very seedy business, indeed! This “slip resistance test” tells us nothing about the real-world slip resistance of a floor, and anyone stupid enough to believe otherwise is someone you shouldn’t be doing business with.
Both ASTM D2047 and the UL410 SCOF tests are scams created to help sell slippery flooring to unsuspecting American flooring consumers. Both tests are a disgrace to the organizations that continue to keep these cons published to fool consumers.
The James Machine test always considered a 0.50 SCOF or greater as “passing”, and you can be sure that just about every flooring on earth will be considered safe when clean, dry, and someone is just standing still on it. For this reason, the James Machine test is a very popular one among those who want to mislead consumers or courts with meaningless “slip resistance test” data. But this type of test is completely meaningless to assessing the real-world slip resistance of a floor.
Different slip resistance test methods will all have a different safety criterion. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in the United Kingdom, along with help from the United Kingdom Slip Resistance Group (UKSRG), has found through five decades of real-world and laboratory floor slip resistance research that a pendulum test value (when floors are tested with the British Pendulum Tribometer) of 36 or greater for a level floor can be considered “low slip potential.” For indoor level floors expected to get wet, some limited research in Germany with another tribometer popular today in the United States called the BOT-3000E, considers a dynamic coefficient of friction (DCOF) of 0.42 “generally acceptable” in ANSI A326.3 (although the test method also says you must consider many other factors besides the DCOF, and that the test method is for comparing surfaces, not assessing whether or not someone will slip on a floor.) The now-withdrawn ASTM C1028 was mistakenly supposed to consider any SCOF over 0.60 to be considered “safe” for pedestrian traffic.
When someone claims that it’s “generally accepted that 0.50 is the safety threshold”, they are demonstrating their lack of knowledge of both tribometry (the study of floor friction) and science itself. Different instruments and test methods will all have a different safety criterion, similar to a Fahrenheit thermometer giving a different reading than a Celsius thermometer. Each tribometer has a different safety criteria, and that’s well-known in the international floor slip resistance testing community, and just plain common sense.
When an English XL user makes this “0.50 means safe” claim, they are showing even a higher level of ignorance, as the user manual of the English XL clearly states that the device measures something they call “slip resistance index”, which according to the user manual of the English XL is a measure of SCOF. To apply the safety criteria from an ancient dry SCOF floor wax test, when what you’re measuring is something called a “slip index” is simply ridiculous. People slip when they’re walking, not standing still, so the English XL is clearly measuring something that is irrelevant to pedestrian safety.
Typical English XL slip resistance test reports are usually filled with tons of misinformation and made-up stuff, such as that the ADA stated that 0.60 SCOF made a floor safe. Here’s the proof they never said that. The ADA themselves wrote us a letter saying “we never said that!” They refer to “accepted industry standards” without saying where these “accepted standards” come from, and they state safety criteria from other test methods (ASTM D2047 for testing floor wax, for instance) as if a number from another test will suit their test for a safety criterion. There’s zero science behind SCOF testing being helpful for preventing pedestrian slips and falls. But they do their best to make their reports SOUND like science with lots of photos and graphs and mentions of what OSHA once said (and then withdrew) and what the ADA apparently said (but never actually said) and what’s “generally accepted.”
Another thing the English XL user manual states is that the user should press down on the actuating button to release CO2 “for about ½ second”. It’s a gas-powered machine, so using more gas will make the device say the floor is slippery, just like pressing your foot down on the gas pedal in your car will make it go faster. If the user releases less CO2 than the “½ second” required, then that’s one way to manipulate the machine to say a slippery floor isn’t slippery. If you can make a defense lawyer happy by saying a slippery floor that’s causing all kinds of problems for the building owner isn’t slippery, that’ll get you a lawyer client that’ll surely be back! Another way to influence results with the English XL is to push the device down on the ground with more force or less force than usual to get different readings.
In the case of the Brungraber Mark IIIB, their users are often very shy. They’ll insist that people stay far back from where they’re testing so no one can see what they’re doing or what results they’re getting. When I’m testing a floor, I don’t mind at all if someone videotapes my testing. Then there’s no argument as to whether I followed the test method accurately or what readings I got. It’s all there on the video. But the Mark IIIB users usually want to do their testing in secrecy, especially when testing for their rare testing for plaintiff attorneys. Why do you imagine that is?! Is the testing with their “patented device” patented as well?
In my experience, I have tested many, many floors for slip resistance over the years. We test flooring for architects and specifiers and building owners and flooring manufacturers who just want the truth. Occasionally, I’ll run a test for a lawyer after a serious slip and fall incident has occurred, leaving the victim with life-altering and permanent injuries. After putting some water down on the floor, my finger, the heel of my hand, my shoe sole, and common sense (polished, shiny, reflective floors are almost always slippery when wet because they usually have no properties that would stop a slip once it has been initiated) told me that the floor was slippery. The pendulum tester, whose test method is based on 50 years of real-world, peer-reviewed research in at least 50 nations, confirmed that the floor was unacceptably slippery when wet. These lawsuits were clearly not “slip and fall scams”. These floors were clearly too slippery. Somehow, though, in each of these cases, the Brungraber Mark IIIB “expert” was able to get a reading saying the floor wasn’t slippery at all?!? I’ve seen this again and again and again. Is it any wonder why the “experts” using this device are so popular with insurance company slip and fall defense attorneys?!
The “Standard was Only Withdrawn Because It’s a Proprietary Device” Lie
Users of the English XL VIT and Brungraber Mark II and Mark IIIB devices like to claim that the ASTM only withdrew their F1677 and F1679 standards in 2006 because the “instruments” described in those test methods were proprietary devices. That’s simply not true. From the ASTM website at the time, the ASTM stated as the withdrawn rationale for ASTM F1679 that, “this test method was withdrawn as an active ASTM standard by action of the Committee on Standards (CoS) on September 30, 2006 for failure to include an approved precision statement (violating Section A21 of the Form and Style for ASTM Standards), and for including reference to proprietary apparatus where alternatives exist (violating Section 15 of the Regulations Governing ASTM Technical Committees).” The withdrawn rationale for ASTM F1677 was precisely the same.
Mark IIIB users, almost all of whom presumably used to be Mark II users, will say their device cannot have an ASTM standard because it’s a proprietary device. That’s certainly comical considering these guys published an ASTM standard for their proprietary device (the Brungraber Mark II) in 1996, and then fought to keep it on the books for ten years before it was withdrawn.
As previously discussed, both OSHA and the ASTM were waiting for a reasonable, peer-reviewed precision statement to be submitted for these two devices, and after ten years of waiting (since the standards were first provisionally published in 1996, and the withdrawal happened in 2006), they were both forced to withdraw the standard (in the ASTM’s case) and stop the endorsement and use of the standards and their devices (in OSHA’s case). Any user of these devices that doesn’t know this history can certainly not be considered an expert in this field.
Also, did all the voting members of the ASTM F13 committee who voted to (provisionally) publish these standards (most of whom do slip and fall expert witness work) without a reasonable precision statement yet in existence only realize that the English XL and Mark II devices were proprietary after ten years of the standard being an active (but provisional) published standard? Why did they publish a standard for a proprietary device when they knew it was against ASTM rules? Either these “experts” didn’t realize they were using a patented device for all those years, or they didn’t understand ASTM rules. Either way, this makes them the opposite of “experts in their field”, doesn’t it? Their “it was only withdrawn because it’s a proprietary device” nonsense is clearly not the case. This is clearly a lie they use to mislead the court. The lack of precision was well documented in the decisions made in 2006 by both OSHA and the ASTM.
The investigations by both OSHA and the ASTM that ended up with the withdrawal of test methods and the end of testing with the English XL and Brungraber Mark II devices revealed that these devices were “not objective”, ”not sufficiently reliable”, OSHA had an ”unacceptably low degree of confidence” that any precision statement would ever be submitted to the ASTM (and apparently they were right), and the test methods were found to be “scientifically unsound”, according to publicly available documents.
Cases Where the Slip and Fall “Expert” Testimony was Thrown Out
Pursuant to Federal Rule 702, the trial judge should act as a gatekeeper to make sure that all expert testimony or evidence is both relevant and reliable. The English XL, the Brungraber Mark II and the Brungraber Mark IIIB have been found to be the opposite of relevant and reliable by the ASTM, OSHA, the international community of experts in this field of study, and several American judges.
In Boucher vs. Venetian Casino Resort, Case No. A-18-773651-C (March 7, 2022, Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., Clark County, NV), the court said it hereby finds that [the English XL user’s] purported expert opinions are insufficient under Hallmark v. Eldridge, 124 Nev. 492, 189 P.3d 646 (2008), and the expert opinion was stricken.
In Kill v. Seattle, 183 Wash. App. 1008, *1-*2 (Wash. App. 2014), the court held that an individual cannot validate a tribometer himself, but rather an independent testing facility can.
In Mincey v. Parsippany Inn, 2010 N.J. Super. Unpub. Lexis 2690 (N.J. Sup. Ct. App. Div. Nov. 8, 2010), in regard to the lack of an accepted industry standard attached to the wet vs. dry English XL test, the court found that the expert is essentially testifying that the surface is more slippery when it is wet. That is common sense, so the expert’s testimony did not aid the jury and the expert opinion was stricken.
In Fedor v. Freightliner, Inc., 193 F. Supp. 2d 820 (E.D. Pa. 2002), the court excluded the opinions of a plaintiff expert because he offered no discernible methodology upon which he had based his opinion regarding a decrease in surface friction.
In Michaels v. Taco Bell Corp., 2012 U.S. Dist. Lexis 140283 (D. Or. Sept. 27, 2012), an expert using the English XL tribometer to assess the floor in a Taco Bell was excluded because the withdrawal from ASTM standards informed why the instrument did not have a reliable methodology that met the standards of 702 because the instrument cannot be properly calibrated to a standard.
In Steffen v. Home Depot, 2014 WL 1494108, No. CV-13-199-JLQ (E.D. Wash. 2014), the court relied on a 2010 article published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences documenting a study of 11 different tribometer models, which tested four different surfaces (the granite, porcelain, tile, and vinyl composite used in ASTM F2508). The article concludes that “different tribometers yield different COF values for a given surface” and that “care should be taken in the interpretation of tribometer measurements in determining the safety of various walkway surfaces.” (ECF No. 22, Ex. 3). Of the 11 tribometers tested in the USC study, the English XL was one of seven failing to meet the test criteria and produce acceptable results. The study was organized by Brungraber Mark IIIB users, and mysteriously all the Mark IIIB testing was done on one Sunday when users of other devices were not present. On the other days of the study, users of several different instruments were present to evaluate other devices, and make sure users weren’t sharing their results with users of the same instrument. The scheduling of having all the Mark IIIB users together in one room for the final day of testing in this study seemed suspicious, as users in this study could easily overhear other users of the same device calling out their results to be recorded by another study participant, which was how results were recorded.
Key court cases where testimony related to the Brungraber Mark II and Mark IIIB was stricken or limited include:
Sorrels v. Safety Corp. of America (2012): The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana excluded expert testimony that relied on the Brungraber Mark II slip meter. The court ruled the methodology was not based on a reliable scientific foundation or established standards and was therefore inadmissible. The only published standard for this device in the entire world, of course, was withdrawn by the ASTM for a lack of a reasonable precision statement, as well as the users of this device suddenly realized, after ten years of using this now-withdrawn test method to win lawsuits, that their device was patented, which excluded the device from having a published test standard. Strange timing, eh? Everyone using the Brungraber Mark II in courtrooms conveniently forgot that their device was patented in 1988 for a full ten years. Every single one of them? Suspicious?
Collins v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (2012): A federal court in Pennsylvania excluded expert testimony based on the Brungraber Mark IIIB, finding that the expert’s methodology was not generally accepted in the relevant scientific community and did not meet the Daubert requirements for reliability. In other words, I can’t bring a feather to court and call it a scientific slip resistance test device. Scientific devices need to have precision that is documented. Apparently these Mark IIIB “experts” are trying to pretend their ASTM F2508 excludes them from having precision, but that’s nonsense and a con created by them to pretend the Mark IIIB is real science. It. Is. Not. Scientific instruments have precision and a published, peer-reviewed test standard, and the Mark IIIB has been proven to NOT have precision and has no official published test standard on earth.
Baugus v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (2014): The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court’s decision to exclude an expert’s testimony regarding the slip resistance of a floor, which was measured using a Brungraber Mark IIIB. The appellate court found the testing methods unreliable. The Mark IIIB has no precision and is therefore junk science used only by American slip and fall “liars for hire” who should probably each be investigated for both fraud and perjury. Just because you believe the Mark IIIB has precision and can be used as a valid scientific floor slip resistance test device in court, and that women with moles on their faces are all witches that must be thrown into a well doesn’t make it true. It makes you either incredibly stupid or a liar under oath.
Page v. Supervalu, Inc. (2015): A U.S. District Court In Maryland similarly excluded expert testimony from a slip and fall “expert” using the Mark IIIB, citing issues with his lack of education (in general and in using the Mark IIIB device) and a lack of experience using the Mark IIIB outside the lab. It was discussed during deposition that there is no formal training for use of the Mark IIIB. Apparently the manufacturer (full-time slip and fall “expert” John Leffler, who brags that he’s been involved in over 1,100 court cases as an “expert”) just sells anyone who might be interested in his Mark IIIB device one of these imprecise and unproven “instruments”, gives that person some basic instructions on how to operate it, never confirms that the person is using it correctly and getting the proper answers on any test surfaces whatsoever, and then that person is presumably now considered a “slip and fall expert”, allowed to report his slip resistance findings in a court of law. The court disagreed, and threw the slip and fall “expert liar for hire” testimony from Mr. Barry Erik Parsons out of court. The judge mentioned as a precedent Michaels v. Taco Bell Corp. (mentioned above). Mr. Parsons admitted that he had never actually tested a floor outside of a lab before testing the floor in question in this case. So instead of being an “expert” in floor slip resistance testing using the Mark IIIB, he admitted to literally being a “first-time beginner” at testing real-world floors for slip potential, this being the first actual real floor he ever tested. This clearly shows that the manufacturer of the Mark IIIB is interested in selling the device to novices who can then pretend to be experts in our courts. With $6,800 and some basic instructions on how to use this device, you too can pretend to be an “expert” on day one with a Brungraber Mark IIIB. Mr. Parsons admitted under oath that “There is no certification on the Brungraber Mark IIIB.” Just buy you a Mark IIIB and start your career as an “expert” in floor slip resistance testing on day one! What a deal, eh!?! Shame on the manufacturers of this “liar for hire” device that has a proven lack of precision and has been ignored by the entire international community of experts in this field of study outside the USA.
Let’s name the “experts” who sell this device, which has exactly zero published test methods on earth for it – Mark Blanchette and John Leffler. It should be mentioned that both of these “experts”, Mr. Blanchette and Mr. Leffler, both recently were the leaders of the ASTM F13 committee, who are supposed to be spending their time publishing slip test standards for devices proven to have precision and accuracy in determining the slip resistance of floors. You know – helping architects and building owners to get some good floor slip resistance safety data using real science to help them stop slip injuries from occurring on the properties they design and manage. During both of their terms as leaders of this ASTM F13 committee, a test method for the Mark IIIB was never published. Isn’t that a bit odd? Not really, because instruments with a proven lack of precision cannot be considered for a published ASTM standard. So they just messed around, published some unimportant and irrelevant nonsense, and tried to “look busy” for all those years. One thing they did find time to do was get me removed from the committee. Now that’s a good use of time – instead of publishing good slip resistance test standards to help stop the slip and fall epidemic making personal injury attorneys and surgeons rich, and getting innocent people killed and horribly injured, get rid of the one person who did publish a scientifically valid slip resistance test method through the ASTM, like me – John C Sotter – who published updates to ASTM E303-22 in 2022 to make that test more closely mimic the pendulum test methods used across Europe, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and basically the rest of the entire world. Mr. Blanchette and Mr. Leffler got the guy using the scientific slip test method the rest of the world uses kicked out of the ASTM, and published not one single test method for assessing the slip risk of a floor during all their years in charge of this important committee. These two are certainly “experts”, but their expertise is seemingly continuing to use unproven science in our courts of law to help insurance companies keep their money for themselves. They are the type of “experts” who create the problem of slips and falls in America. Shame on them! They are literally responsible for all the deaths and injuries caused by slips in the USA – because they are blocking real science from becoming published standards to help stop slips, and promoting junk science that does not help stop slips and only helps attorneys win their slip and fall cases.
Blevins v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (2014): A U.S. District Court in Mississippi similarly excluded expert testimony involving the Mark IIIB, citing issues with the device’s lack of precision and a non-peer-reviewed test method. Again, If you can’t call a psychic to the stand in a murder case, you can’t call some seedy guy in a suit with a Mark IIIB to the stand either. Judges need to wake up to these facts that the lack of precision has been proven in at least one published study, and the users of this device know they’re not going to convince any standards-publishing organization to publish a test method for this junk science, so they’re not even trying to get one published.
These cases above (and many more) often hinge on the argument that the Brungraber devices, while popular with certain expert witnesses (more precisely known as “expert liars for hire”) lack a peer-reviewed ASTM standard for their application (or a test standard in ANY other nation) in forensic slip-and-fall analysis, which challenges their admissibility under standards like Daubert and Frye.
The European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, and the rest of the world is not interested in using this device for assessing floor safety, and they’re not interested in attempting to publish a peer-reviewed test standard for this Mark IIIB device that clearly lacks precision. The users of the Mark IIIB, after the ASTM test methods for their Mark I and Mark II were withdrawn, has now come up with an insanely dumb way of “validating” their instrument using their ASTM F2508, which makes a mockery of the ASTM (for publishing such nonsense), and a mockery of science. It literally creates a “validation technique” that will make your head spin. Using this moronic “validation technique”, a feather can be used as a tribometer in an American court of law, and my eyes work as a scientific thermometer in court as well. The nonsense tests often published (and then withdrawn years later after being discovered as fraudulent, unuseful tests creating avoidable deaths and life-changing injuries to innocent pedestrians) by the ASTM are embarrassing, so I no longer participate in their frequently dishonest, deceitful and untrustworthy organization that refuses to police their most unscrupulous and shameless committees. See ASTM D2047 and ASTM C1028. These are standards created by two different ASTM committees that are laughable, at best, and fraudulent “safety tests” that should have the people involved in publishing them facing jail time for getting so many innocent people needlessly killed or injured.
Here’s another bizarre case where no instrument at all was used to assess the slip resistance of a floor by the head of the National Floor Safety Institute (NFSI) and a proud member of the ASTM F13 committee, whose job is to create slip resistance test methods, but who haven’t published a single test method for over 30 years now. In Noftz v. Holiday CVS LLC – United States District Court – Middle District of Florida – June 5th, 2019, Russell Kendzior’s testimony was thrown out of court because he just used some photos of the store to write an “expert” report on the slip resistance of the floors and what was missing from the floors.
From this blog, “The defendant points to another case (Alsip v. Wal-Mart Stores), which was a slip-and-fall case where Kendzior did not perform any on-site testing, which resulted in the court excluding his expert witness testimony. The court in the present case opines that the lack of on-site testing was not the basis for the exclusion of Kendzior’s testimony as in the Alsip case.” “The court does note that some of Kendzior’s opinions should be excluded under Daubert and the Federal Rules of Evidence 702 as they are not based on sufficient facts or data.” “The court also opines that Kendzior’s opinions that CVS is challenging are not supported by any testimony or anything in the written report. The court opines that many of Kendzior’s opinions are just a recitation of the plaintiff’s own testimony.
Conclusion: The motion to exclude the expert witness testimony of Russell Kendzior is granted.”
Wow! These guys are sometimes such experts in the field of floor slip resistance testing that they can testify in court without seeing or testing the floor with ANY instrument. Now that’s some kind of “expert”, eh?! And he brags that he’s been an expert witness in over 1,000 slip and fall cases. Scary, eh?
As an interesting side-note, the NFSI used to use the BOT-3000E for the majority of their testing, until Mr. Kendzior’s neighbor and former friend, Peter Ermish of Walkway Management Group had a little “tiff”, and now Mr. Kendzior uses the TracScan, which looks like a BOT-3000E painted yellow. Here’s a link (at the bottom of the page after clicking on an arrow about the BOT-3000E) explaining why the NFSI (or Mr. Kendzior to be more specific) no longer endorses the BOT-3000E, and here’s Peter Ermish’s response from the Walkway Management Group of Texas, which basically says all NFSI standards are not valid. It’s super cute when “experts” get on each other’s nerves and start to go after each other online, change what test standards they consider valid, and one day they fully endorse one tribometer, and the next day they fully denounce it. Super cute.
The field of slip and fall “experts” in America are filled with shady, unscrupulous people who use instruments not accepted in any other nation because they have a well-documented lack of precision, people who need to do their testing “in secret” where the opposing lawyer isn’t allowed to see the results the “expert” is getting in real time, and people who sometimes don’t even need to use ANY instrument at all to assess the slip risk of a floor. They are expert “liars for hire” who create fake data to win lawsuits, and they do not work to help stop slips in the USA. This situation in our courtrooms is an absolute mess! “Experts” using the English XL, Brungraber Mark IIIB, and any SCOF test, like the NFSI’s ANSI B101.1, should not be allowed to testify in our courts of law. These test methods and devices have no scientific backing and are disavowed by the entire international community of experts in this field of study. FULL STOP! These “experts” should be held accountable for perjury.
Summary Conclusion of the Slip and Fall Disinformation Game Used by English XL and Mark IIIB Users
The slip and fall injury lawsuit business in the United States is a virtual gold rush. Driving on any highway in any US city, one will find dozens of billboard ads for personal injury attorneys, each vowing to fight for you and get you the money you deserve for your injuries. Slip and fall “experts” have found ways to get unproven and unscientific devices allowed into American courtrooms by stacking the ASTM F13 committee with voting members who are a part of their slip and fall “liar for hire” industry.
The ASTM F13 members are tasked with creating and publishing slip resistance test methods in the USA, but now they are making sure that no test method for reliable and proven floor slip resistance test instruments ever get published. They are in the majority in the F13 committee, so they have created a stalemate where nothing of value will ever again get published while they’re in charge and in the majority. That is now their stated mission. If their instruments can’t have a standard, then no instrument will! This is to help further their careers as full-time slip and fall expert liars for hire.
They make fools of the ASTM Committee on Standards by pretending they’re busy publishing things, but they’re just publishing nonsensical things like ASTM F2048, which explains the “Standard Practice for Reporting Slip Resistance Test Results”. General nonsense is published in “standards” like these that tell you to write your name on your slip resistance test report, make sure to number the pages, report the temperature at which you took your readings, and be sure to put a smiley face at the end of it. It’s just useless nonsense that doesn’t help anyone determine the slipperiness of a floor, but it makes it look like the F13 committee is busy doing something.
The elected leaders of the ASTM F13 committee over the years, of course, have been English XL and Mark IIIB users. The chairman, as of the time of this publication, is a registered English XL user, and the Vice-Chairman is none other than the man who is exclusively “responsible for…sales and servicing of Brungraber-designed [Mark II and Mark IIIB] walkway friction testing devices.” The present Recording Secretary is an author of the USC study that became ASTM F2508 to help falsely “validate” the Mark IIIB tribometer, and the chairman at the time that study became the ASTM F2508 standard was none other than the other main author of the USC tribometer study. The “experts” using unproven instruments and withdrawn test methods have taken over, and they’ll make sure no other reliable test methods get published.
The victims of this game these slip and fall “experts” are playing within the ASTM F13 committee is every pedestrian in America, since building owners and architects can’t be sure if a floor is slippery or not before a slip injury happens because there is literally no present F13-published ASTM standard for any particular instrument for testing the slip resistance of floors that hasn’t been withdrawn. The winners, of course, are the very slip and fall “experts” running and making up the majority of voting members in the ASTM F13 committee. They WANT serious slip and fall injuries happening across the country each and every day! That’s how they get their pay! The more serious, life-altering slip injuries happening to more innocent people across America, the better for them! Their office phone rings and rings! The fox has essentially been allowed to construct the chicken coop himself, secret doors and all.
If there continues to not be a valid, peer-reviewed, published test method for assessing the slip resistance of a floor detailing the use of a reliable and proven test instrument in the ultra-litigious United States, then the unscrupulous “liars for hire” can make a great living spewing half-cocked excuses as to why they are using a test method that was withdrawn, or an instrument that doesn’t have a peer-reviewed test method in any country. They can publish studies and articles and create bogus “validation techniques” through the ASTM to fool judges and juries so that they can continue to use the machines they have learned to manipulate to get the “correct answers”, depending on whether they’ve been hired by the plaintiff’s attorney or the defense attorney.
Recently, two test methods have been published that creates some challenges for their lucrative slip and fall expert “liar for hire” game. ANSI A326.3 was written mostly by representatives of the American tile industry (and concrete and stone polishing industries), and it sets an incredibly low bar for safety. The standard is full of disclaimers and warnings that one should not use the DCOF values given in the standard as the minimum required as the minimum required (it states you must also consider several other factors, and no guidance is given on how to consider them), and it also says plenty of other purposefully confusing things such as ANSI A326.3 should be used as “a useful comparison of surfaces, but does not predict the likelihood a person will or will not slip on a hard surface flooring material.” This makes the recently published ANSI A326.3 test method good for the defense (if you ignore all the disclaimers), and it is mainly used to help sell slippery flooring in America. It essentially replaced the even worse ASTM C1028, which was withdrawn in 2014.
ASTM E303-22, on the other hand, was published in June of 2022. It utilizes the British Pendulum Slip Resistance Test Device, which has a published, peer-reviewed test method for its use in at least 50 nations on five continents and has been in use for over 50 years. It’s easily the most widely accepted and trusted slip resistance test device in the world today, and it can be used in the lab and the field. It’s been used in countless international interlaboratory studies, and it correctly ranked the four tiles in the previously mentioned ASTM F2508 study BEFORE the results were published.
John Sotter of Safety Direct America did the work of revising the ASTM E303-93 (2022) standard, which was first published in 1993 and historically was used to measure the slip resistance of roads in the USA. ASTM E303-22 now more closely mirrors the pendulum slip resistance test methods used to measure the slip potential of floors across Europe, Australia, Asia, and most of the rest of the world. This will likely bring a storm of full-time expert “liars for hire” from the ASTM F13 committee over to the ASTM E17 committee that published the revised version of ASTM E303, and the F13 members will certainly do everything in their power to make sure the E303 test method either goes away or is somehow only allowed to be used to test roads. They can’t have a test method published for testing the slip resistance of floors! That defeats their purpose in leading and stacking the F13 committee with English XL and Mark IIIB users to make sure nothing gets published! What excuse will they have now for using withdrawn test methods or instruments that have no test method?! This will be very bad for the game they’re playing within our courts.
The slip and fall “expert” witness game is a lucrative one, and integrity has no place in the hearts and minds of many of the people playing the game as “experts.” Time will tell, but we can be sure that reliable, science-backed test methods for assessing the real-world slip resistance of flooring based on decades of international research will be blocked by the expert “liars for hire” in America’s ASTM F13 committee.
For now, ASTM E303 can allow building owners, flooring manufacturers, architects and specifiers to know the truth about the slip potential of floors based on 50 years of international research. When ASTM E303 is somehow blocked or excluded from testing floors by a coalition of whining expert liars, Sotter Engineering Corporation will go back to using the peer-reviewed published test methods for the use of the British Pendulum to assess the slip resistance of floors from Europe and the United Kingdom (BS EN 16165:2021) or the Australia/New Zealand standards (AS/NZS 4586 and AS/NZS 4663). A test method doesn’t need to be American to give you the truth. In fact, in this field of study, the worst tests published in the world have usually all been American. (See the long list of withdrawn ASTM slip resistance test standards from over the decades: C1028, F1677, F1679, F462, F609, etc., etc.)
The truth matters. That’s what we specialize in when we test floors for slip resistance at Sotter Engineering.
Anyone using an English XL or Brungraber Mark IIIB should be excluded from testifying in slip and fall cases in the USA, as they are excluded in every other country on earth. They are not using test methods that are “published and subject to peer review”. The test methods were withdrawn when the users of these devices couldn’t produce a reasonable precision statement after ten years of the ASTM asking for one. They are certainly not using test devices that are “generally accepted in the scientific community”. The entire world does not find these devices useful. They are only used to create bogus data for use in American courtrooms. These “experts” are not creating slip resistance test data that is “based on more particularized facts rather than assumption, conjecture, or generalization”. These con men literally created fake slip resistance test devices and fake safety criteria for them that have been shown in published studies to lack precision, and these “experts” should be held accountable for fraud and perjury.
Having been a member of ASTM’s F13 committee for several years, I’ve met some pretty stupid people, but there is no-one stupid enough to honestly believe ASTM F2508 “validates” an instrument as a scientific device. Anyone who believes that stupidity should only be in a courtroom to face charges of perjury, not testifying as some sort of scientific “expert”.