Product Liability / Defective Product

A consumer purchases a product with the expectation that they will not be harmed by that product when using it. Regardless of this expectation, thousands of people each year are seriously injured or killed by dangerous or defective products. A vast amount of product defects are a result of a product breaking, failing, or improperly functioning, and some of the more common life threatening defective products include dangerous children’s toys, automobile tires, household appliances, industrial machinery and equipment, improperly designed consumer products, and prescription drugs.

Under the Uniform Product Liability Act, Section 102(2), product liability includes “all claims or action brought for personal injury, death, or property damage caused by the manufacture, design, formula, preparation, assembly, installation, testing, warnings, instructions, marketing, packaging, or labeling of any product.” The responsible parties may include manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, or retailers that make a product available to the public.

Generally, a product liability lawsuit seeks to establish that the injury causing product was defective because it did not work as expected when used in its intended fashion, thereby exposing the user to unexpected danger. The three most common types of product liability claims are:

• Design Defect
  A design defect exists when a product’s flawed design makes it inherently dangerous, regardless if the product has been precisely manufactured to its specifications.
• Manufacturing Defect
  A manufacturing defect exists when a product is designed safely, but an error occurs during the manufacturing process, rendering the product flawed and unsafe.
• Insufficient Safety Warnings or Instructions
  A product can be deemed defective if it does not have adequate safety warnings or instructions for its proper use. Generally, this type of claim arises when the product is dangerous in a way that is not obvious to the user or requires the product user to follow certain precautions when using the product and the user is unaware of those non-obvious dangers or precautions.

Because defective products can cause severe injury or death to consumers and users, resulting in substantial compensation being paid by the negligent party to the injured party, product designers, manufacturers, and distributors rigorously defend against these types of claims. Common defenses that a negligent designer, manufacturer, or distributor might raise are that the injured party substantially altered the product after it left the manufacturer’s control or that the injured party misused the product in an unforeseeable way. When raising these defenses, the negligent party will likely assert that the alteration or misuse of the product was the cause of injury and that the injured party should be solely responsible, thereby relieving the designer, manufacturer, or distributor from all liability.

Product liability lawsuits can be extremely complex. When asserting a claim for product liability based on a design defect, manufacturing defect, or failure to provide adequate safety warnings or instructions, it is imperative that you retain a law firm that understands the complexities involved in this type of case and can adequately represent you.