We expect the products we buy and use to be safe when used as intended, but, unfortunately, this is often not the case. Defective products are often sold to people who then suffer serious injury or may lose a loved one. Often, the defects are known, but are concealed by the manufacturer. The defects may even be by design because it makes the product cheaper. Other times, the defect may have been discovered and quietly fixed, although the manufacturer denies it.
A defective product lawsuit can help you get compensation to pay medical bills, make up for lost wages, and make up for you injury or loss. It can also punish companies that try to make money with defective products and warn others about dangerous products. To learn whether you can file a defective product lawsuit, please contact AccidentAttorneys.org today to talk to a local attorney with experience in this field.
Defective Products Can Be Profitable
Product manufacturers have a duty to make sure the products they manufacture and sell are safe for use. They may mistakenly marketed a dangerous product, but all too often they are aware that the product they are selling is defective. We have examples of this for:
And other types of defective products. When companies market defective products, they often know how to fix the product, but the fix is expensive and the company decides it will be more profitable to put you and your loved ones at risk.
Design Defects
A design defect is when a product is unreasonably dangerous for its intended or foreseeable uses. This includes products with inadequate safeguards, such as a guard on a power saw. Your state may use different standards to determine what constitutes a design defect.
Manufacturing Defects
A manufacturing defect is when a product is made of poor material or is poorly assembled during manufacturing. Manufacturing defects often occur when a manufacturer decides to use a cheaper material than specified by the engineer or cut out steps in the manufacturing process, leading to a product that can fail dangerously during use.
Defective Instructions
Other times, products may be defective because they contain inadequate, misleading, or dangerous instructions. These instructions may direct you to use a product in a way that leads to injury, or not warn you away from a use that seems reasonable but is not dangerous.
You Can Make a Difference
When a company intentionally markets a defective product for increased profit, they do not care about your family, your injury, or your loss. They will not be swayed from marketing their defective product unless it becomes unprofitable to do so. Your defective product lawsuit can cut into their profits and make them decide it is better to market safe products.
Your lawsuit may also lead to publicity for a dangerous product, which can bring more victims forward who may not have known their injuries were due to a product defect. As more injury victims come forward, it can lead to a general product recall, government fines for the manufacturer, and customer ill-will. These can all serve to persuade other manufacturers to put safety first.
Your Attorney Also Makes a Difference
Defective product lawsuits are complicated and require expertise in engineering, material science, manufacturing, and other areas to be pursued successfully. You need to find a lawyer who has the expertise to pursue these cases, not a lawyer who may take your case, then pass you off to another lawyer for a finder’s fee, or attempt it but make errors that prevent you from getting compensation.
At AccidentAttorneys.org we have brought together attorneys who have been recognized by their peers and by independent ratings agencies for their leadership in many types of personal injury cases, including defective product lawsuits.
Defective Product Lawsuits Frequently Asked Questions
Who Can Be Held Liable for Defective Products Injuries?
Anyone along the supply chain can be held liable. Examples include:
- Manufacturer
- Retailer
- Leasing or rental company
- Wholesaler
- Distributer
- Installer
- Importer
- Third-party warehouse
- Delivery service
Others who may be held responsible include:
- Designer
- Engineer
- Consultant
- Third-party quality-control service
Can a Product be Considered Defective if it did not Break or Malfunction?
Yes. There are many types of dangerous defects including inadequate instructions, failure to warn, and dangerous design. Improper marketing, such as advertising a product to be used in ways it cannot be safely used or by people who cannot use it safely, is also considered a defect.
How Long do I have to File My Defective Product Claim?
The time limit for filing a lawsuit is called the statute of limitations. Each state sets its own statute of limitations for product liability lawsuits. The time limit varies greatly from state-to-state. For instance, in Kentucky and Louisiana the statute of limitations is only one year, but in Maine you have six years. Two years is very common. The clock starts to run on the date of injury or death. However, most states honor the “discovery rule” which means that the clock does not start running until you knew or should have known about your injury and that the defective product caused it.
Applying the discovery rule is not always easy. Product manufacturers have ways of trying to get around it, such as issuing vague notices about defective products, so they can say you knew or should have known as of the date of the notice.
The statute of limitations is an unforgiving deadline. If you let it expire, you lose your right to sue for your injuries, no matter how much you deserve compensation. Under certain circumstances the statute of limitations is tolled, meaning put on hold. The most common is when the injury victim is a minor child.
The statute of limitations is not the only time limit you need to consider. Some states have an additional deadline called the statute of repose that bars consumers from suing if a certain number of years have passed after the product was manufactured or sold.
What if the Product was Really Old?
This is where the statute of repose comes in, if your state has one. “Old” is subjective, but the statute of repose is specific. Not all states have a statute of repose on product liability. In those that do, the amount of time from state-to-state, with 10 years being common. Some are based on the date of sale, some on the manufacture date, some have time limits based on both, and there can be other specifics that determine how much time you have. For example, in Ohio, the statute of repose is 10 years from the date that the product was delivered to the first purchaser unless the warranty is longer.
The statute of repose can cut off the time you would have had under the statute of limitations alone. Your deadline is the shorter of the two.
To talk to a local product liability attorney, search for an attorney in your area today.
