Many personal injury plaintiffs have been harmed by a product or consumer item that they believed was safe but ended up being defective to the point that they were injured. We feel this sort of risk is simply unacceptable. If you have recently been injured by a product or consumer item, contact our offices today. We would love to review your claim and help you uncover the compensation you deserve. The area of the law concerning an action against a manufacturer is known as “products liability.” Below we have outlined some of the main points concerning products liability.
- Strict Liability: Products liability is usually a strict liability cause of action. What does this mean? It means that the defendant, usually a corporation or manufacturer, will not be given an opportunity to raise most available defenses to your injury claim. Normally, personal injury defendants are allowed to raise a defense such assumption of the risk or consent. Not so in a strict liability action. If the product injured you, the court will hold the defendant liable. Under a strict liability action, it is also irrelevant how much due care was exercised by the defendant or how careful he was in producing the item.
- Purchaser: Many people errantly believe that if they are not the person who purchased the product, they cannot recover from the maker. This is not the case. The law will protect any foreseeable individual from harm caused by a consumer product. Thus, anyone in the household or immediate family of the purchaser will likely be given the opportunity to sue the manufacturer under products liability. For example, if you purchased a toaster for your household, it is reasonably foreseeable that everyone in the household will use it, not just the person who paid for it.
- Misuse: Injuries sustained during misuse of the product will not necessarily be barred from compensation. The manufacturer or designer has a responsibility to account for foreseeable misuse by a plaintiff. This means that if you were misusing the product in some way other than its intended purpose and this misuse was in such a way that the designer should have contemplated it, you might still be able to recover. Unforeseeable misuse will not be recoverable however because the designer will not have a duty to protect users from injury as a result of unreasonable use.
Products liability can cover an extremely vast number of personal injury cases. Anything from vehicles to children’s toys to electronics could be recoverable under products liability. The best way to know if you have a case is to contact a personal injury lawyer as soon as possible! Products liability lawyers are not intimidated by lawsuits against suppliers, producers, manufacturers, designers or large corporations. Leave the worrying to us and we will help you receive the products liability compensation you deserve! Manufacturers have a duty to protect consumers from harm and we aim to see that duty is upheld at all times.
