EXPERT-SYSTEM FOR EVALUATING PRODUCT LIABILITY CLAIMS

The SKADE 2 expert system evaluates product liability claims and gener ates 'litigate or settle' decisions. This expert-system application ma y achieve savings for corporations. It can help to reduce excessive se ttlements and unnecessary trials by giving decision makers precise inf ormation about the eventual outcomes of similar past cases, or by orga nizing and structuring complex high-stakes product liability claims. T he blackboard model provides the conceptual framework and organizing s chema for the system. Interviews with litigators, claims adjusters, te chnical (product) experts, managers and lawyers provided the knowledge needed to develop the conceptual model and the system knowledge base. The results of experiments with the validation and analysis of a hypo thetical case indicate that the blackboard is an appropriate model for the development of expert systems in the product liability domain. Th e initial success with the SKADE 2 system suggests that further work n eeds to be done on whether more complex models can be built to incorpo rate a broader range of determinants of product liability claims evalu ation.