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Product Liability Case: How To Deal With Defective Product Injuries...
A product liability case works differently then other
personal injury cases.
Product
liability law has made it so
that in almost every case the manufacturer is liable for injuries
caused by their product (known as strict
liability). This is standard across all states as a means
of protecting the consumer.
How
can a consumer prove that a particular device was defective as a
result of carelessness on the part of the manufacturer?
And how can the
consumer be shown as being careless themselves unless they are
obligated to closely inspect every single thing they purchase?
In most product liability cases the law takes the negligence factor
out
of
the equation - this is known as strict liability.
Unlike other personal injury situations, in these cases the only thing
that matters is causation.
The Four
Factors You Need to Cement your Product Liability Case:
1) The product had to be unreasonably
dangerous.
2) It had to have been used in its
intended fashion.
3) It couldn’t have been greatly altered
from its original condition.
4) The user could not have been
previously aware of the defect.
Unreasonably
dangerous
means that it is okay for a device to have dangers as long as they are
understood and necessary. If you burn yourself on a toaster’s element
the manufacturer will naturally claim that it is reasonable for the
toaster to get that hot.
If, however, the toaster had an electrical
problem and caught fire then your burns were sustained due to an
unreasonable danger - in this case it's a defect.
Strict
liability won’t apply if you were using the product in a way the
manufacture didn’t intend. If someone used a screwdriver
to pry open a
bottle cap and cut themselves as a result, the manufacturer of the
screwdriver wouldn’t be held responsible.
If the screwdriver injured
someone because it broke while they were tightening a screw then strict
liability
would apply.
Things can often be subjective when it
comes to a product being altered. Product liability law says that you
can’t modify a product significantly.
If your
alteration was something unforeseeable by the manufacturer, or
something that changed the way the product worked, you wouldn’t have a
strong product liability case.
In a product liability lawsuit the
manufacturer will often try to show that you knew there was a defect
before using the device.
Often someone
will see that their appliance is sparking but will continue to use it
anyway. In any product liability case, if the manufacturer can show
that you knew about
the defect before the injury then the manufacturer’s defense will be
greatly strengthened.
Product
liability law applies to anyone using
the product. The person does not have to be the original
purchaser and
may even have bought it second hand.
If it was purchased from
a store that regularly deals with that type of item then the business
can be held liable as well.
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