Case Types
Motor Vehicle Crash
FR+A provides a full host of analytical services for MVCs of all severity, from minimal damage rear impact crashes to fatal crashes. These services include:
Crash reconstruction and simulation
Animation of vehicle, occupant, and pedestrian movement
Biomechanical and epidemiological analysis of causation of observed injuries
Seatbelt non-use or failure risk analysis
Vehicle product failure (i.e. excessive roof crush, seat back failure, etc.)
Mass Tort (Environmental Hazard)
FR+A provides analysis of a wide variety of harmful environmental exposures and associated injuries and disease, occurring in discrete populations. Examples of prior analyses include:
Asbestos-related disease
Ground soil and water contamination from industrial processes
Long term and acute pesticide exposure
Toxic building secondary to mold or other contaminant exposure
Foodborne and bloodborne illness causation
Medical Negligence
FR+A analysis of alleged medical negligence claims focuses on epidemiological analysis of the alternative or “but-for” scenario, which typically quantifies the risk of injury or death given a set of specific facts, versus the risk of the same injury in the absence of the alleged harm. National hospital data and other data sets are used for conducting ad hoc epidemiological analyses that are applicable to the individual facts in a case. Examples of analysis are as follows:
Birth injury
Peripartum anoxic brain injury/ hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy
Brachial plexus injuries
Other birth-related trauma
Delay in diagnosis and treatment (e.g. stroke, MI, sepsis)
Failures in thromboprophylaxis (post-operative pulmonary embolism and stroke)
Opiate overdose
Custody-Related Death and Injury
FR+A investigation of in-custody deaths is most commonly directed at quantifying the fatality risk of multiple possible factors (e.g. the presence of illicit drugs, pre-existing cardio-respiratory disease, etc.) versus the risk associated with the restraint-related actions of law enforcement or security personnel (e.g. compression asphyxia, Taser use, etc.)
Criminal Violence
FR+A provides analysis of fact patterns for a number of different types of criminal cases, most commonly:
Alleged child abuse
Shaken baby syndrome/ abusive head trauma
Medical child abuse/ Munchausen syndrome by proxy
Physical (non-head trauma) abuse
Assault (physical and sexual)
Traffic crash-related prosecution
Driver vs. passenger identification
Vehicular homicide
Vehicular assault
Homicide investigation
Product Defect
Product defects, whether automotive, consumer, medical device, or pharmaceutical, are investigated at FR+A using surveillance and other epidemiologic data that allow for the estimation of an expected rate of failure, or failure-related injury (based on rates seen in similar products or drugs), versus the observed rate in the allegedly defective product. The comparison allows for the quantification of injury risk that is attributable to the defect.
Foodborne Illness
FR+A methods for investigating both food and bloodborne illnesses are based on a combination of methods used in public health outbreak investigations. These are used to identify a cluster of cases that are likely related by a common factor (e.g. negligent handling of food, or failure to follow infection prevention and control protocol), and specific causation methods, which are used to quantify the likelihood that an individual is a member of a case cluster. Analysis and description of epidemiologic data, whether from published literature or from national hospital and surveillance databases, are used to quantify and compare observed versus expected infection risks.
Life Expectancy
FR+A provides analysis of survival or life expectancy projections for the following applications:
Birth injury (cerebral palsy/stroke) survival
Spinal cord injury
Traumatic brain injury
Quantification of survival reduction in wrongful death cases