Retail Expert Witness Corp

by Jerry Birnbach, Retail Expert Witness | Retail Expert Witness Corp.

The travel and leisure industry — resorts, casinos, arenas, convention centers, entertainment venues — operates in a category of commercial design that most premises liability experts never fully address. These are large-scale, high-traffic, mixed-use environments built to move thousands of people through complex spaces. When someone is injured in one, the question of negligence requires an expert who understands not just safety codes, but how these spaces are designed, built, and managed.

That’s where my background becomes particularly relevant.

What travel and leisure environments have in common

Across hospitality, entertainment, and convention spaces, the same design factors create injury risk in recurring patterns:

Crowd flow and path design. Large venues are engineered for crowd movement, but when that engineering fails — through blocked egress paths, inadequate signage, poor lighting in transition areas, or surface materials that degrade under heavy foot traffic — injuries follow. Understanding how a space was designed to move people, and where that design broke down, is a core part of what I do in an expert report.

Seasonal and event-based hazard cycles. A resort pool deck behaves very differently in peak summer season than in the off-season. A convention center lobby carries different risks during a packed trade show than on a quiet Tuesday. Negligence in these environments often has a seasonal or event-based pattern — and maintaining appropriate safety protocols across those cycles is an industry standard expectation.

Mixed surface environments. Resorts, casinos, and entertainment venues tend to use the widest variety of surface materials of any commercial environment — stone, tile, polished concrete, outdoor decking, indoor carpet, wet zone surfaces near pools or spas. Each transition zone is a potential hazard. Each surface type has its own applicable standards for slip resistance and maintenance.

Signage and wayfinding. In large-scale leisure environments, signage isn’t just directional — it’s a safety system. Missing, inadequate, or poorly positioned warning signage is one of the most common findings in my expert reports on venue and resort cases.

A note for attorneys handling out-of-state venue cases

One challenge in travel and leisure cases is that the injury occurred somewhere the plaintiff no longer is — a resort in another state, a cruise terminal, a convention center in a city they visited once. Evidence preservation is time-sensitive in these cases. Surveillance footage in particular is often on short retention cycles. If you’re handling a case involving an injury at a travel or leisure destination, retaining an expert early — before the physical evidence is gone or the property is modified — is one of the most important steps you can take.

I work with attorneys across the United States. If you’re unsure whether a case in this category warrants a commercial design expert, contact my project manager Gennifer 1-914-907-6044 | genniferbirnbach@gmail.com to schedule a free 15 min call.

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