Product Liability
Defective Products
Every day in the United States, products that are supposed to help make our lives better end up severely injuring and killing many people.[1] As defective product injury lawyers and trial attorneys, our role is to represent clients injured by defective products and the families who have lost a loved one due to a defective product in seeking full compensation.
Who May Be Responsible for Injuries or Death from Defective Products?
Legally, any person or company in the supply chain may be responsible for a defective product. For example, if you buy a defective chainsaw at a hardware store, such store, any supplier of the product to such store, and the manufacturer may all be liable for the injuries that result.
How May a Product be Defective?
Products may be defective in a number of ways, including:
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Undue or Unforeseeable Risk of Harm. For instance, a dresser for a child is used to store clothes. We should not expect that if the child hangs on an open drawer that the dresser will fall on the child.
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The Product May Not Function as Anticipated. Airbags in a car are expected to deploy in crashes to protect the driver and other vehicle occupants. If the airbag does not deploy as expected, or if it deploys when there is no crash, and occupants are injured as a result, the airbag will be considered defective.
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The Product May Pose an Unreasonable Risk of Harm. Products, particularly equipment, should have adequate safety devices and should not pose an unknown risk of harm. When a product does not include proper safety devices or presents an unknown risk of harm, the product may be considered defective.
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Inadequate Instructions. Many products, such as equipment, require appropriate instruction so that users may understand how to operate the product in a safe manner. If products do not contain safety manuals or other instruction that clearly shows how to operate the product safely, and to warn about unsafe use, the product may be determined to be defective.
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Other Harm. The foregoing are only some ways in which a product need to be defective, they are other ways that a product may be defective.
Common Types of Defective Products
Historically, the following types of products have a high incidence of being defective:
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Vehicles with a High Center of Gravity and ATVs. High center of gravity vehicles and ATVs often have an unduly high risk of rollover.
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Ordinary Vehicles that Have Specific Aspects that are Defective. Even “normal” vehicles may be defective because they failed to protect occupants (such as through seat belt or airbag failure) or because the “protective crash zone” does not operate properly. Recently, many people have been injured through inadvertent airbag deployment (including airbag deployment resulting in shrapnel-like material being forced into occupants), as well as “sticky” accelerators, which resulted in drivers being unable to stop their vehicle.
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Defective Tires. Defective vehicle tires can have a propensity to “blowout” and cause vehicles to rollover, injuring or even killing vehicle occupants.
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Children’s products, including strollers, car seats, toys, furniture, and cribs. Tragically, hundreds of children are injured or killed each year as the result of defective products. Sadly, products that are designed to protect children often inadvertently result in injury. Learn more about types of defective children’s products.
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Many types of equipment, such as chainsaws and table saws, are inherently dangerous. These types of equipment may be determined defective for a number of reasons – the product design may result in an unreasonable risk to those using the product, or the products may not provide proper instructions which may also lead to injury.
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Medical Devices and Medicine. Medical device manufacturers have been forced to recall numerous devices, such as defective hip implants. If you’ve been injured by a defective medical device, you should seek the counsel of an experience defective product attorney prior to giving up any rights that you may have by agreeing to a class action settlement.
[1] The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission compiles numerous lists of injurie and deaths by types of products and other matters. For example, see https://www.cpsc.gov/Research–Statistics/Injury-Statistics.
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