If you get any injuries because of the defective and unreasonably dangerous product, then the personal injury claim that you choose to file may probably be called the “product liability” case, however, it is a kind of legal term. Its lawsuit is based on many different theories of liability (arguments you & your lawyer can make to hold the seller or manufacturer responsible for the negligent product design and injuries).
Table of Contents
What’s Product Liability?
Dangerous or defective products or designs are the major cause of several injuries each year. Product liability & consumer protection laws vary from one country to another country. However, the basic reasoning is dealing with the safety and protection of the consumer, even though the damage was due to the consumer’s negligence.
Product liability generally refers to the manufacturer and retailer being held responsible for placing the defective product in the consumer’s hands. Responsibility for the product defect, which causes injury generally lies with the sellers of a product in a distribution chain. Normally, the law wants the product should meet the consumer’s expectations in the best way possible. When a product has an unexpected danger or defect, that product must not meet the consumer’s expectations.
Negligent Product Design – Who is Responsible?
Defendants in the products liability cases will span the complete distribution chain right from the product manufacturer to its retailer who sold that defective item straight to the consumer. Suppose the defect involves the component of a product, the consumer can sue the manufacturer of that component and overall product manufacturer.
Identifying the right defendants & bringing them into action is very important as some will have higher resources for paying damages than the others. Joint & several liabilities apply in the product liability cases that mean the plaintiff will recover the complete amount of the damages from the defendant found liable, even though the defendant didn’t bear the full responsibility for these injuries.
Design Defects
First, the product gets designed, manufactured, and then marketed out to the consumer to buy. Sometimes, the product is designed very poorly or not tested properly which results in making the dangerous and faulty product. The negligent product design liability claims mean where there is any damage caused because of that product’s flawed design. For such kind of products liability claim, the error isn’t caused at a manufacturing stage. Here the design of an entire product line was defective. When the product design is defective then it poses the threat to their consumers. For example, a car model airbags aren’t thick to absorb the collision impact. Or, its steering does not work when a car is in reverse.
These are the design defects, which will cause some severe harm to the customers. In these cases, if you’re involved in the accident and sustained some severe injuries, then you have to prove that product is defective and dangerous by the design and your injuries were because of use from the product.
Manufacturers
The product manufacturers generally represent the first link in this entire chain of distribution. Mostly these are the big factories that make the products that we buy daily. Many companies generally rely on the middlemen during this process, which includes sourcing agents, foreign trading companies, and wholesalers, although such figures are tough to note down for the damages as they generally tend to disappear when there is any hint of trouble going on. If you are filing the product liability case, then you will have to sue different manufacturers depending upon your defective product designed & which parts are liable for the injuries.
Other Defendants
The manufacturing company who released that defective and dangerous product generally acts as a defendant for the product liability claims. There are many other parties that are involved in that product creation, sale, and distribution, but, can bear partial or full fault.
- Product component manufacturer
- Retailer
- Distributor
- Third-party
- Contractor
Finding out who has to be blamed legally for your injuries will take a little help from the team of investigators. Hiring the lawyer can make it very simple to trace the primary cause of the injury as well as bring strong action against those correct defendants.
Final Words
The product manufacturers make use of warning labels or disclaimers that will prevent customers from filing product liability lawsuits.
