Product liability
Design defect, manufacturing defect, and failure-to-warn claims involving PPE. Exemplar comparison, construction analysis, and whether the product as sold matched the standard and the instructions that accompanied it.
Georgia · Personal protective equipment
Austin Gridley
Manufacturer-side expert witness for cases involving hard hats, eye and face protection, hearing protection, and safety apparel. Retained when the question is whether the product met the standard, failed in design or manufacture, or was used outside its intended conditions.
5 years
Inside a U.S. PPE manufacturer
Head to toe
Helmets, eyewear, hearing, apparel
702 / Daubert
Opinions built to the Georgia standard
Both sides
Neutral, independent, conflict-checked
01
About
The useful expert has already lived inside the factory, the lab, and the standard.
Austin Gridley is the Innovation and Compliance Lead at DeltaPlus USA Inc., a Woodstock, Georgia manufacturer of personal protective equipment. For five years he has worked the full path a safety product takes: specification, overseas production, import compliance, laboratory testing, quality systems, and the American standards that decide whether the product is fit for a jobsite.
Before leading innovation and compliance, he served as an import product buyer. That work is the unglamorous half of PPE reliability: factory expectations, incoming quality, documentation, and the gap between a catalog claim and what was actually built.
Counsel retain him in product-liability and workplace-injury matters where a hard hat, visor, hearing protector, or high-visibility garment is at the center of the case. The assignment is narrow and factual: apply the right standard, test method, and manufacturing record to the product and the incident.
Engagements are accepted only after a conflict review. Mr. Gridley is employed by
DeltaPlus USA Inc. He does not disclose confidential employer, supplier, or customer
information, and he does not accept matters that would conflict with that employment.
Opinions offered in litigation are his own, formed on the record of the case.
02
Practice
Where manufacturer-side PPE knowledge actually moves a case.
Primary work is product liability and workplace injury involving protective equipment, plus the regulatory overlay those products carry.
Workplace injury
Construction, industrial, and manufacturing accidents where head, eye, face, hearing, or high-visibility protection is alleged to have failed, been inadequate, or been misused.
Regulatory compliance
OSHA use requirements, ANSI/ISEA product standards, ISO-aligned quality systems, and U.S. import rules that govern how PPE is specified, tested, labeled, and brought to market.
Failure versus misuse
Separating a defective product from a product used after impact, worn incorrectly, past its service life, or in a hazard it was never certified to address. That distinction is often the case.
03
Technical scope
Standards and products within the testimony envelope.
Scope is stated plainly so counsel can test it on a Daubert or 702 challenge before anyone is retained.
Head protection
ANSI/ISEA Z89.1
Industrial helmets and related head protection: impact and penetration performance, suspension and harness systems, shell materials and fatigue, markings, and instructions for use. Includes the practical questions of replacement after impact, reverse wearing, and accessory interference.
Eye and face protection
ANSI/ISEA Z87.1
Spectacles, goggles, and face shields: high-impact testing, optical quality, prescription and non-prescription frames, coverage, and whether the selected protector matched the hazard.
Hearing protection
ANSI S3.19 · NRR
Attenuation ratings, NRR claims, fit and use conditions, and the well-known gap between laboratory ratings and field performance when devices are worn incorrectly or inconsistently.
Apparel and import path
ANSI/ISEA 107 · CPSC / OSHA import
High-visibility garments, labeling, factory quality control, overseas production oversight, and the import documentation that is supposed to follow a product into the United States.
Quality systems
ISO-aligned QMS · laboratory protocols
Nonconformance, corrective action, factory audits, incoming inspection, laboratory test records, and regulatory submittals. How a manufacturer knows — or fails to know — that a lot met the spec.
ANSI/ISEA Z89.1
ANSI/ISEA Z87.1
ANSI S3.19
ANSI/ISEA 107
OSHA
ISO 9001
CPSC
O.C.G.A. § 24-7-702
Fed. R. Evid. 702
04
Typical questions
The questions counsel actually need answered.
- Did this hard hat meet ANSI/ISEA Z89.1 as of the date of manufacture, and what does the marking actually claim?
- Is the incident better explained by a design defect, a manufacturing nonconformance, a warning gap, or user conduct?
- Was the eye or face protector the right Z87 device for the hazard, or a general-purpose product asked to do specialty work?
- Does the NRR on the package describe real-world attenuation for how this hearing protector was worn?
- Was the high-visibility garment the correct performance class for the work zone, and were the fluorescent and retroreflective materials still effective?
- What would a competent factory audit, incoming inspection, or laboratory protocol have caught before the product shipped?
05
Engagement
How work is taken. How opinions are formed.
Georgia courts evaluate expert testimony under O.C.G.A. § 24-7-702, which aligns with the federal Daubert standard: qualification, helpfulness to the trier of fact, sufficient facts, and reliable methods applied to the case.
- Conflict review No file is opened until employer, customer, supplier, and competitor conflicts are cleared. If the matter cannot be taken, you will be told promptly.
- Scope, fees, retainer Written engagement. Hourly fees for review, inspection, and testing; a higher rate for deposition and trial. Retainer required before work begins. Contingency fee arrangements are not accepted.
- Record and standards Pleadings, photographs, exemplars, lot records, warnings, and the standards in effect at manufacture and at the time of the incident.
- Inspection and testing Where the facts require it: physical inspection, exemplar comparison, and laboratory protocols rather than impressions formed from photographs alone.
- Report and testimony Written opinions suitable for Georgia and federal disclosure, deposition, and trial. Rebuttal of opposing experts when the science and the record support it.
Preliminary screening conversations are confidential and do not create an engagement. Fee schedules are provided to counsel on request. Rates are consistent with industrial product experts and are never tied to the outcome of the case.
Mr. Gridley is also available to speak to bar groups, including members of the Georgia Defense Lawyers Association and the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, on evaluating PPE failure versus user misuse.
This site is not legal advice and is not an advertisement of prior trial results.
Availability depends on conflicts, schedule, and the fit between the assignment and
the technical scope above.
06
Litigation CV
Credentials that can be stated in a report and defended on cross.
Innovation and Compliance Lead
DeltaPlus USA Inc., Woodstock, Georgia. Responsible for innovation and compliance work across head protection, eye and face protection, hearing protection, and safety apparel, including standards alignment, quality systems, and product development support.
Import Product Buyer
DeltaPlus USA Inc. Product sourcing and import-path quality for PPE entering the U.S. market: factory expectations, documentation, and the compliance burden that sits between an overseas line and an American distributor or end user.
DeltaPlus USA Inc.
ISO 9001 certified PPE manufacturer in Woodstock, Georgia, with domestic production of head protection and a broader portfolio of eye/face, hearing, and high-visibility products. Formerly associated with ERB Safety.
Quality management systems
Failure analysis
Laboratory testing protocols
Factory audits
Regulatory submittals
Import compliance
Product labeling & warnings