Every year, Americans suffer over 30 million injuries that are severe enough to need medical attention, and some of them are a result of the use of a dangerous product. There are three basic types of product liability: defective design, defects in manufacturing, and failure to warn. A person who suffers an injury may have grounds for filing a personal injury claim, and product liability has the second highest average damage awards at $300,000. Here’s what you need to know if you think you have a case.
Defective Design
One of the common forms of product liability comes from defects in design. This means that all of the products manufactured are manufactured the same way and to design specifications, but the product is still dangerous. For instance, a certain model car might have a tendency to flip over while negotiating turns even if a driver is going a reasonable speed. All of the cars manufactured might be to specifications, but the design is faulty to begin with.
Defects in Manufacturing
Another form of product liability is defective manufacturing. This means that there is nothing wrong with the product’s design, but not all batches of the product are manufactured the same way and something happens in the process that makes it dangerous. This commonly happens with food products like, for example, fresh spinach that comes into contact with the bacteria E. coli. The spinach was grown fine and is not dangerous, but somewhere in the process it came into contact with a deadly bacteria so became dangerous for use.
Failure to Warn
The last type of product liability is what is called failure to warn. This means that nothing is really wrong with the design of the product and nothing made it dangerous during the manufacturing process, but a person might still be injured by using it. If the misuse of the product makes sense and a user becomes injured, he or she might have grounds for a personal injury lawsuit. An example of this is a hot beverage with no warning label. A person could reasonably assume that it would be safe to drink without getting burned, but if there isn’t one they may become injured.
Do you have any questions about product liability or consumer rights? Let us know in the comments! Learn more about this topic here: www.foryourjustice.com