What Is A Products Liability Case?

Despite efforts by the government to regulate safety and pass laws and rules and regulations to make the products we use safer, the efforts don’t always work—on many occasions, products that we use can and do cause us injury. When they do, a victim has a right to file a lawsuit for what is known as products liability.

There are two kinds of products liability lawsuits: those that allege that a product was manufactured improperly, and those that allege that there is a defect in the way a particular product was made or designed.

Manufacturing Defect

A manufacturing defect is one that can be thought of as a “one off,” it is a “bad seed” that comes off the assembly line differently than every other of the exact same product. For example, every airbag in a given car may be fine and work just fine, but in your car, it was not installed properly, causing it to malfunction.

The actual design of the airbag, as a whole and when looking at all of the same products, is just fine. The one they put in your car was made differently than the rest, causing it to malfunction.

Design Defects

Design defects are different. With a design defect, every product—including yours—was made or manufactured the exact way that it was supposed to be made. The problem is in the actual design of the product.

A classic example of this is when medicines cause harm. Every single dose of that medicine is made the same way—the dose you bought or took, is no different than every other dose. It is the actual design or manufacturing or makeup of the drug that causes injury, and which causes injury to most, if not all, users.

When there is a design defect, every one of those products must be taken off the market; there are none that are safe, as the error causing the injury is in the inherent makeup of the product.

Strict Liability

You do not have to prove negligence in product liability cases. So long as the product was, in fact, defective and caused your injury, the law presumes liability (under what is known as strict liability). You don’t have to show what a manufacturer could have or should have done, or what they did or didn’t do right or wrong.

Multiple Entities Can be Sued

One thing that makes product liability cases unique, is that all entities in the chain of production can be liable for your injuries caused by the defective product. That includes the end-line seller.

So, for example, Target may have had nothing to do with the manufacturing or design of a given product it sells, and no knowledge that the product may be dangerous. But Target is the seller, and a seller can be liable for injuries caused by a product that it sells, which makes Target liable for your injuries. This is why many retailers voluntarily pull defective products from their shelves.

Injured by a defective or dangerous product? Call the West Palm Beach personal injury attorneys at Pike & Lustig today.

Sources:

justia.com/products-liability/types-of-products-liability-claims/design-defects/#:~:text=Design%20defect%20cases%20focus%20on,type%20have%20the%20same%20defect.

forbes.com/advisor/legal/product-liability/manufacturing-defect/