In today's society of plaintiffs’ counsel advertising and soliciting claims through TV, radio, the Internet, there has been a dramatic increase of product liability claims filed in state and federal courts throughout the country. It is now commonplace for all types of products to be the subject of a product liability claim. An important part of understanding your responsibility for products and services is to understand how that responsibility is defined by law. Although various states have differing laws relating to enforcement of legal liability, two legal theories typically apply to product liability: negligence and strict liability of defective products.

Negligence

A claim for negligence focuses on the conduct of the manufacturer or product seller, and the alleged failure to use reasonable care in some aspect when manufacturing or selling the product. For example, an injured consumer may argue that a manufacturer failed to use reasonable care in its inspection or quality controls, or that it failed to employ reasonable care in product and component part testing.

A defense attorney to this negligence claim may argue that the injured consumer failed to use the product with reasonable care, and it was not the fault of the manufacturer or product seller. For example, a manufacturer or product seller may argue that the injured consumer failed to read and follow clear instructions.

Strict Liability

Under the theory of strict liability, the fault focuses on the product itself and whether it functioned appropriately. A “defective” product came be measured by showing that the product presents a substantial likelihood of harm to consumers due to one or more of the following:

• Design defect – a product may be found to be defective when the design does not include a necessary and feasible safety feature.
• Manufacturing defect – a product may be found to be defective when it is not manufactured in compliance with the design.
• Warnings and instructions defect – a product may be found to be defective when its communications (instructions, warnings, manuals, labels) accompanying or affixed to it are inadequate, inappropriate, misleading or confusing.

Our product liability attorneys defend personal injury or property damage litigations arising from alleged design and manufacturing defects, or information/warning deficiencies, in products. We defend individual cases from one-off injuries and also have the extensive experience to handle mass torts. Mass torts comprise of class actions and/or multiple related individual cases brought by plaintiffs. Most of our cases within a mass tort do not usually go to trial as they tend to be resolved early through mediation or settlement, but if cases go to trial, we are prepared to argue and defend our claims before a jury.