Dr. Ronald B. Standler
Legal Consultant in
Meteorology
& Atmospheric Physics


Brief credentials and experience of Dr. Standler: I support litigators with cases involving physics, electrical engineering, atmospheric science, or meteorology, including legal research and evaluation of discovery.   Because of my experience in atmospheric physics research during the 1970s, I am particularly interested in cases involving damage or injury caused by lightning, as well as negligent weather modification and negligent weather forecasts.

Lightning

In 1997, I wrote two essays that show the interaction between science, technology, engineering standards, medicine, and law in the USA:
  1. Lightning injuries to users of telephones and
  2. Legal duties to warn and to protect people from direct lightning strikes.

The legal duty to warn of lightning at recreational facilities, compared with the duty to warn of riptide at beaches, an essay that I wrote in March 2007.

My webpage about lightning.

Liability for Negligent
Weather Modification

My first peer-reviewed scientific paper, back in the year 1972, was a review of the literature on the toxicity of silver iodide (AgI), the most common cloud seeding agent. In 2002, I spent three months reading all of the reported cases involving negligent cloud seeding, reading all of the articles in law reviews about weather modification, and reading many articles in the meteorology and atmospheric physics journals about weather modification. As a result of this study, I wrote an essay on the law of weather modification. This essay discusses and analyzes court cases in the USA concerning cloud seeding and summarizes the basic principles of tort liability for cloud seeders.

My separate essay on the history & problems with cloud seeding also explains the need to give adequate long-term financial support to basic scientific research before engaging in practical applications.

Scientists have been doing research in weather modification since 1946. Because of the immense economic important of water to farmers and ranchers, there have been many commercial cloud seeding operators since the early 1950s. Despite this long history of science and technology, the courts in the USA have not yet begun to resolve legal issues involving either (1) negligent cloud seeding or (2) the rights of landowners to rain from the clouds that are either above their land or upwind from their land.

Liability for Negligent
Weather Forecasts

My essay on legal liability in the USA for Negligent Weather Forecasts discusses each of the reported court cases in the USA on this topic that involved either people on the ground or sailors at sea. This essay also compares and contrasts cases involving an airplane crash caused by negligent weather information from employees of the U.S. Government.

Meteorologists, especially weather forecasters and their managers, should be interested in this new and evolving area of law. In addition to consulting with litigators, I am interested in designing contracts and disclaimers for private forecasters to allocate risks.

Contact Dr. Standler

Because I am licensed to practice law only in Massachusetts, I can not give legal advice to clients in other states.   If you live outside of Massachusetts, the only way I can help you is if your local attorney hires me as a consultant. See my hints on how to find an attorney in the USA.   For cases involving injury or damage by lightning, weather modification, or weather forecasts, you probably need an attorney who is experienced with tort (personal injury) litigation.

Contact Dr. Standler.




Copyright 2007 by Ronald B. Standler
this document is at   http://www.rbs2.com/meteorol.htm
created 7 Dec 2007,   revised 11 Dec 2007.