Using Warnings and Instructions to Increase Safety and Reduce Liability

Thoroughly developed warnings and instructions are the most cost-effective way to increase the safety of your product while decreasing your product liability exposure. Learn the current legal duty to warn, the latest ANSI standards that apply to product warnings, factors useful in evaluating effective warnings and instructions, and how to test and revise warnings and instructions.

The brochure for this course can be downloaded here.

• Managers 
• Engineers 
• Technical writers
• Product safety specialists
• Anyone responsible for creating or reviewing instructions and warnings

Although not required, course attendees are encouraged to bring ANSI Z535.4 and ANSI Z535.6 to class.

Section 1: The Legal Duty to Warn and Instruct

• What are your legal responsibilities?
• How did we get here and the theories of liability: negligence/strict liability
  • Factors in determining whether a duty exists
• Open and obvious hazards and warnings
• Foreseeable/unintended/unforeseeable Misuse
  • Modifications of products and their impact on your responsibility
• Adequacy of warnings
• Causation: Did the failure to warn cause the accident?
• Post-sale duties: Warnings/retrofit/recalls
• ANSI Z535 Standards for Manuals
• Cases hot off the press
• How to improve your product and organization

Section 2: Post-Sale Issues Facing Manufacturers

How to protect a company with indemnity contracts and tender of defense obligations. 

• Evaluate situations from a post-sale standpoint.
• Steps to mitigate risk
• Post-sale warnings
• Recalls and retrofits
• Ramifications of design change

Section 3: Warnings and Instructions: Understanding the National and International Standards 

The Role of On-Product Warnings in Safety/Liability

• Why are safety labels important?
• Elements of an effective label
• Legal duty to warn and adequate warnings
• How risk assessment, labels, and manuals are related

Key Standards and Requirements for U.S. and International Labels

• Levels of and a legal perspective on standards
• ANSI Z535 standards (guidelines for label structure/content, color, translations, durability/materials, and complex messaging)
• ISO 3864-2 standards (symbol use and design, and wordless label format options
• Standards harmonization)
• EU Machinery Directive

Winning Strategies and Latest Trends

• Latest updates to the ANSI/ISO standards
• The evolution of label formats
• Analyzing your intended audience
• A systems approach to safety labeling
• Digitalization and automation considerations

Team-Based Workshop Activity

• Evaluate warnings
• Develop recommendations
• Team presentation of findings

Section 4: ANSI Z535.7 Standard in Development: Applying Z535 style to digital media

As your organization offers additional methods of digital communication to your customers, how should the safety messages be presented and formatted on your website, product-related videos, app, and other digital media? The proposed ANSI Z535.7 standard will address the application of Z535 style formatting conventions and the presentation of safety-related messages across various forms of digital media, including dynamic media.

Section 5: Developing Warnings and Instructions for Product Safety

• Integrating product safety into your product line
• Warning and Instruction Development considerations
• Practical considerations in the development of warnings and instructions

Section 6:  Danger: Plaintiff’s Lawyer - Warnings Liability and Cautionary Tales

• Screening for warnings cases – what are inadequate instructions or warnings?
  • Hierarchy of safety
  • Wisconsin – statutory requirements for warnings case
  • Compliance with standards
  • Uses of the product – reasonable vs. foreseeable misuse
  • Users of the product
    • Sophisticated user vs. general public
    • Purchaser vs. Third Party
  • Case specific Examples
    • Ineffective Warnings and Instructions
    • Shifting Responsibility on Duty to Warn

           Warnings Improving over Time

Section 7:  Considerations for evaluating warnings and instructions

• Evaluation Considerations
  • When to evaluate
  • Evaluation methods
  • When and how to document
  • Evaluation workshop

Speaker 1.  Cal Burnton

Cal Burnton has tried and won numerous complex toxic tort and product liability cases, earning a national reputation for his ability to coordinate, manage, and defend mass toxic tort and complex product liability cases with a special emphasis on high-risk matters involving novel legal, scientific, and environmental theories. His clients have included leading manufacturers and sellers of products such as chemicals, healthcare appliances, toys, medical devices, electrical equipment, firearms, printing presses, industrial machinery, and power tools. Mr. Burnton is a trusted counselor to his clients, advising them on issues regarding product liability, government regulations, product safety, and related matters. Throughout the years, he has represented corporate clients in both federal and state courts in almost every state across the country.

Speaker 2:  Jen Paldino

Jen Paldino is the Director of Risk and Compliance for Jetson, a manufacturer of alternative transportation and electronic mobile solutions.  She has worked in the Risk, Compliance and Claims field for over a decade. Her role includes establishing, building, and managing the Risk and Compliance function and in-house Legal Department, as well as leading the liability defense team to defend product liability claims.

Jen Paldino holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (B.B.A.) in Marketing from Hofstra University and has studied International Business at Stony Brook University. Jen is a RIMS Professional Member obtained in 2021 from RIMS (Risk and Insurance Management Society, Inc.) and a Full Member of the CLM Alliance (Claims and Litigation Management Alliance).

Speaker 3:  Angela Lambert

Angela Lambert has over fifteen years of experience in product safety, warnings, and liability. In her role at Clarion Safety, she collaborates with manufacturers – as well as industry partners and advocates – on labels, signs, and markings that can help reduce risk and protect people. That includes having a keen understanding of visual safety communication standards, as well as safety label content/design, color systems, and print production. From a standards perspective, Ms. Lambert is actively involved at the leadership level in the ANSI and ISO standards for product safety. She is chair of the ANSI Z535.1 subcommittee, leading the standard that focuses on colors used in visual safety communication. She is also a delegate representative to the ANSI Z535 committee, to the ISO/TC 145 SC2 WG 1 committee (responsible for the library of ISO 7010 registered symbols and the ISO 3864 set of standards), and to ISO/TC 283 (responsible for the ISO 45001 standard). Additionally, she is the liaison for ISO/TC 145 to ISO/TC 283, acting as a bridge between the international safety label/sign standards and workplace health/safety standards.

Ms. Lambert is also an expert speaker on product safety and visual safety communication at universities and associations across the country. In addition to designing and producing best practice labels and signs, Clarion Safety specializes in guiding its clients through a streamlined process to implement cutting-edge visual safety communication systems in line with today's leading safety standards. The company also provides complementary services for comprehensive machine safety, compliance, and risk reduction. Clarion Safety is a member of the ANSI Z535 Committee for Safety Signs and Colors, the U.S. ANSI TAG to ISO/TC 145, and the U.S. ANSI TAG to ISO 45001.

Speaker 4:  Eric J. Boelhouwer, Ph.D., CSP, CPE

Dr. Boelhouwer has been a Principal Consultant for Dorris and Associates International, LLC for over 10 years.  Dr. Boelhouwer’s primary responsibilities include the design and implementation of product safety research, including evaluations of human-machine interfaces, as well as the usability and effectiveness of precautionary information.  He routinely provides expert testimony related to product safety and the evaluation of instructions, warnings, and other safety communications.

During his professional work experience, Dr. Boelhouwer has led safety reviews for industrial processes and worked for over seven years in chemical manufacturing plants.  He was an Affiliate Professor at Auburn University from 2011-2022 and served on the Board of Directors for the Society for Chemical Hazard Communication from 2013-2017.  Dr. Boelhouwer is a member of several ANSI Z535 subcommittees and currently serves as the ANSI Z535.7 subcommittee chair. 

Speaker 5: Mark Hickock

Mark Hickok is Vice President – Product Safety and Regulatory Compliance for Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation.  He brings over 30 years of product safety experience and has extensive background working in global new product development and leading product safety teams and activities.  His work includes directing the development of warnings and instructions, performing hazard analysis reviews, ensuring compliance with a variety of standards and regulations (i.e., UL, CSA, OSHA, FCC, and DOT), and participating in the standards development process.  He is the current Chair of the ANSI Z535.4 Subcommittee on Product Safety Signs and Labels, a delegate to the ANSI Z535 committee, and additionally serves as a representative to numerous trade associations and standards-making committees.  He often speaks to organizations on product safety matters and has guest lectured at Marquette University regarding product safety in design.  Mr. Hickok received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and master’s degree in Engineering with a focus on ergonomics and biomechanics, both from Marquette.  He is a Certified Product Safety Professional™, a Certified Fire and Explosion Investigator, a member of the Society of Product Safety Professional Board, and holds numerous memberships and affiliations. Prior to working at Milwaukee, Mr. Hickok was a project engineer at Underwriters Laboratories.

Speaker 6:  Michele Hockers

Michelle Hockers is a shareholder at Murphy & Prachthauser, S.C. Ms. Hockers practices exclusively personal injury law representing injured persons in cases involving product defects, motor vehicle accidents, and unsafe premises. Ms. Hockers has litigated numerous serious injury cases caused by defective products, automobile accidents, and other forms of negligent conduct in Wisconsin. She has also been admitted to practice in courts across the country, including California and Minnesota on auto product cases. Ms. Hockers brings a unique perspective to the topic of instructions and warnings due to her experience representing the plaintiffs in product actions. She reviews the potential liability of manufacturers for failing to warn or providing improper warnings or instructions on their products in her practice. 

Speaker 7:  Jared Frantz

Jared Frantz is a Human Factors Consultant for Applied Safety and Ergonomics, A Rimkus Company. He is a Certified Human Factors Professional who specializes in human factors/ergonomics, warnings, and product and occupational safety. He has extensive experience developing and evaluating warnings and safety symbols for a wide variety of consumer and commercial products and is a member of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Z535.4 Subcommittee on Product Safety Signs and Labels and Z535.7 Subcommittee on Product Safety Information in Electronic Media. He teaches a safety management course in the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan. His research and teaching include product and occupational safety, risk assessment and communication, and human factors in accident causation. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Michigan in Industrial and Operations Engineering. 

"The program is very well-rounded and covers each of the elements of warnings and instructions in a thorough, effective, and interesting manner."

"I'd be hard pressed to say what was best—there was so much useful information, and the outside experts were super."

"Good consistent information throughout the presentations. Everyone had the same message for action by companies for warnings and instruction."

Charles Burhans

Mr. Burhans is a Senior Consultant. His recent professional activities include development and evaluation of warnings and instructions and product literature, analysis of standards, accident investigation, and the development of safety training materials and product safety/integrity documentation. While at the University of Michigan, he was an Instructional Assistant for Product and Occupational Safety Management courses in the Industrial and Operations Engineering Department. Mr. Burhans is a member of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Z535.6 Subcommittee on Product Safety Information in Product Manuals, Instructions, and Other Collateral Materials. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Michigan in Industrial and Operations Engineering.

Cal Burnton

Over a 30-year career, Cal Burnton tried and won numerous complex toxic tort and product liability cases, earning a national reputation for his ability to coordinate, manage, and defend product liability and mass toxic tort cases.  His national clients have included leading manufacturers and sellers of products such as chemicals, pesticides, health care appliances, medical devices, electrical equipment, firearms, printing presses, industrial machinery, and power tools. He has also served as national counsel for a well-known toy company on safety and regulatory issues.  Throughout the years, he has represented manufacturing and chemical clients in both federal and state courts in almost every state across the country.

Angela Lambert

Angela Lambert has over fifteen years of experience in product safety, warnings, and liability. In her role at Clarion Safety, she collaborates with manufacturers – as well as industry partners and advocates – on labels, signs, and markings that can help reduce risk and protect people. That includes having a keen understanding of visual safety communication standards, as well as safety label content/design, color systems, and print production. From a standards perspective, Ms. Lambert is actively involved at the leadership level in the ANSI and ISO standards for product safety. She is chair of the ANSI Z535.1 subcommittee, leading the standard that focuses on colors used in visual safety communication. She is also a delegate representative to the ANSI Z535 committee, to the ISO/TC 145 SC2 WG 1 committee (responsible for the library of ISO 7010 registered symbols and the ISO 3864 set of standards), and to ISO/TC 283 (responsible for the ISO 45001 standard). Additionally, she is the liaison for ISO/TC 145 to ISO/TC 283, acting as a bridge between the international safety label/sign standards and workplace health/safety standards.

Ms. Lambert is also an expert speaker on product safety and visual safety communication at universities and associations across the country. In addition to designing and producing best practice labels and signs, Clarion Safety specializes in guiding its clients through a streamlined process to implement cutting-edge visual safety communication systems in line with today's leading safety standards. The company also provides complementary services for comprehensive machine safety, compliance, and risk reduction. Clarion Safety is a member of the ANSI Z535 Committee for Safety Signs and Colors, the U.S. ANSI TAG to ISO/TC 145, and the U.S. ANSI TAG to ISO 45001.