By: Bryan Netherland, MBA, MS, CSP, CSHO, ARM, WACH
Tel: 318-680-3773
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Mr. Netherland
Most slip, trip, and fall cases are not won or lost on whether someone fell. They are decided on a narrower and more technical question: was the walkway reasonably safe, and how do you prove it either way? Reasonableness is ultimately a question for the court, but it is rarely answered in a vacuum. It is measured against a body of codes and nationally recognized consensus standards that many attorneys may never encounter until an expert puts them in the record.
This article explains where the standard of care actually comes from in slip and fall litigation, which standards establish it, and why walkway surface slip resistance testing has become central to credible expert analysis. It is written for plaintiff and defense counsel who want to understand the technical framework before they are surprised by it.
In slip and fall litigation, the standard of care is rarely defined by a single source. Courts often draw across a range of authority when determining what a reasonably prudent property owner should have done, including federal laws and regulations, building codes adopted by the jurisdiction, and nationally recognized industry consensus standards. How much weight any one source carries depends on the facts of the case and the law of the jurisdiction. Company policies and internal procedures can also be relevant, and where an owner's own written standards exceed the public ones, those internal commitments may become a measuring stick of their own.
Codes, consensus standards, and policies all operate differently. Knowing how each applies to a specific set of facts is a substantial part of what an expert brings to a case. Building codes such as the International Building Code are adopted into law by jurisdictions and carry the force of regulation. Consensus standards, by contrast, are developed voluntarily by committees of engineers, safety professionals, manufacturers, and other stakeholders through a formal, published process that requires public comment and the resolution of objections. They are not automatically enforceable, yet they carry substantial weight, because they represent the documented agreement of an industry about what safe practice requires.
The nuance is in the application. Which code edition was in force when the property was built or last renovated, whether a given consensus standard is recognized as applicable to the specific condition and setting, and how the two interact when a regulation is general and the standard supplies the technical threshold, these are the questions that determine whether a standard helps or hurts a case. An expert who understands not just what the standards say but when and how they apply is what turns a list of citations into a coherent opinion on the standard of care.
Several sources govern walking surfaces and the conditions surrounding them, and a thorough expert analysis identifies which ones apply to the specific facts of the case, and with what authority. They fall into multiple groups.
Federal regulations, which carry the force of law in the settings they govern:
Adopted codes and life safety provisions, which carry the force of law where a jurisdiction has adopted them:
Voluntary consensus standards, which establish recognized industry practice and serve as evidence of the standard of care:
The presence or absence of any one of these in an expert's analysis tells you a great deal about the rigor of that analysis. A report that asserts a walkway was "unsafe" without anchoring that conclusion to a specific, named standard is offering an opinion. A report that measures the condition against ASTM F1637 or the NFSI B101 thresholds is offering evidence.
A common factual dispute in a slip case is whether the floor was actually slippery. Slip resistance is a measurable physical property, the coefficient of friction (COF) between footwear and the walking surface. COF is measured with a tribometer and compared against established thresholds.
Two values matter, and they are not interchangeable. Static coefficient of friction (SCOF) is the friction that must be overcome to begin movement between two surfaces at rest. Dynamic coefficient of friction (DCOF) is the friction present once movement has begun and one surface is sliding across the other. DCOF is ordinarily the lower of the two. A slip that initiates at heel strike and a slip that propagates into a fall are different physical events, and different measurements describe them.
The NFSI B101 standards set thresholds for both. Under NFSI B101.1, which governs the wet SCOF of hard-surface walkways, a wet SCOF of 0.60 or greater is classified as high traction; 0.40 to 0.59 is moderate traction, warranting monitoring and consideration of traction-enhancing measures; and below 0.40 is low traction, calling for professional intervention. The companion standard NFSI B101.3 sets thresholds for wet DCOF, with high traction at 0.45 or greater on level surfaces and 0.50 or greater on ramps. ANSI A326.3 establishes a separate DCOF test method widely used for hard-surface flooring.
Counsel should understand that the appropriate role of static measurement is contested within the field, and an expert on either side should be prepared to address it. ASTM withdrew its static test method, ASTM C1028, in 2014, and much of the field has since moved toward dynamic measurement. The argument against relying on SCOF alone is direct: a pedestrian in a normal gait is in motion, and a slip occurs as the heel contacts the surface and the foot travels forward, not while the foot is at rest. Critics also point out that the B101.1 method defines how wet SCOF is measured without asserting a relationship between that value and human ambulation. Those who continue to use SCOF respond that heel strike involves a brief static moment before movement begins, and that this moment is what the measurement captures.
The practical consequence is that an expert who rests an opinion entirely on a single SCOF value has left that opinion exposed. The more defensible analysis identifies the mechanism of the fall and explains which measurement corresponds to that mechanism, accounting for both where the evidence permits.
The temporal problem compounds this. A traction value reflects the surface in the condition it was in at the time of testing. It is not necessarily the condition that existed at the moment of the incident, which may have differed in contamination, wear, footwear, cleaning treatment, or moisture. An expert who presents a present-day measurement as if it proves the surface's traction at the time of a fall invites a potential challenge.
The defensible use of slip resistance data is therefore more careful. A measurement is most probative when it can be tied to the incident conditions through other evidence: maintenance and cleaning records, the flooring's history and treatment, the contaminant involved, environmental conditions, and whether the surface and its upkeep have remained materially unchanged. Used this way, the B101 framework gives an opinion a defined, recognized benchmark while acknowledging its limits. That candor is not a weakness in the testimony. It is what makes the testimony survive scrutiny, and it is part of what distinguishes a qualified expert from one whose conclusions outrun the data.
Measuring slip resistance correctly is not a matter of buying a meter and placing it on a floor. The NFSI B101.0 standard, the Walkway Surface Auditing Procedure, sets out a detailed and systematic process for performing a walkway surface traction audit, and it defines who is qualified to perform one. A qualified walkway auditor is an individual who has completed a nationally recognized training program and demonstrated, through examination and skill testing, competence in the methods, measurement, analysis, and recording of walkway surface traction data. The NFSI Walkway Auditor Certificate Holder (WACH) credential is the standard's own named example of such a qualified auditor.
This matters in litigation for two reasons. First, the measurement is only as defensible as the methodology and the qualifications behind it. An expert who follows the B101.0 audit procedure and holds the credential the standard itself identifies is far harder to impeach on cross-examination than one performing an improvised test. Second, the standard specifies the conditions of a valid test, including four-directional testing requirements and that only a properly calibrated tribometer be used. An expert familiar with these requirements can identify when an opposing measurement was performed improperly.
For counsel, the practical takeaway is that the credential and the methodology are not resume decoration. They are the foundation of whether the slip resistance evidence in the case survives challenge.
Slip resistance is central, but it is not the whole picture. A complete analysis evaluates the condition that caused the incident, whether it was a recognizable, recurring, or concealed hazard, and how long it existed before the fall. It examines the property owner's inspection and maintenance practices, including sweep logs, inspection schedules, and documentation, to determine whether a reasonable program would have identified and corrected the condition in time. It considers walkway design, surface transitions, lighting, handrails, and stairway geometry against the applicable standards. And it weighs warning practices, including the placement and adequacy of signage and barriers.
The unifying question across all of these is foreseeability. Was the hazard the kind of condition the owner should have anticipated and controlled, based on what the standards and the industry recognized about it? Consensus standards answer that question because they document what experienced professionals had already determined about preventing exactly this type of incident, often years before it occurred.
The most common and most costly mistake in slip and fall litigation is waiting too long to bring in technical analysis. By the time depositions are taken, the opportunity to inspect and measure the actual condition may be gone, and the evidentiary record may already have gaps that cannot be closed. Identifying the applicable consensus standards early lets counsel frame discovery around the right questions, preserve the conditions that matter, and avoid building a case on a theory the standards do not support.
Slip, trip, and fall cases are difficult to win and easy to lose when counsel (or the expert) is unprepared. The standards, methods, qualifications, and thresholds exist. The side that understands them and retains an expert who knows both how to apply them and where their limits lie, holds a real advantage over the side still arguing about whether the floor felt slippery.
Bryan Netherland, MS, MBA, CSP, CSHO, ARM, is a Safety Expert Witness and consultant with more than 15 years of experience building and leading OSHA Compliance and Risk Management programs across manufacturing, logistics, and industrial operations, including Fortune 10 companies. Through Seek Safety Consulting, he provides litigation support and expert analysis to attorneys handling workplace injury, premises liability, and industrial accident cases nationwide..
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1/29/2026· Slip, Trip & Fall
Slip And Fall - Contract Disputes
By: Dick Bridy, PhD
This is known as premises liability. It also notes that on occasion, a person who is on the property (not the owner) may be responsible for their injuries if they have "willfully or by want of ordinary care, brought the injury upon himself or herself."
7/14/2009· Slip, Trip & Fall
Second to automobile accidents, accidents due to falls are the leading cause of injury and death. Of these, accidents due to slipping (not tripping) form a large proportion. Slipping may occur on floors, walkways, and stairs or steps. For Introductory purposes, however, the present discussion will be limited to slipping on flat surfaces such as a floor or sidewalk.
