What Can People Do When Injured By Defective Products?

When someone buys a product, they expect it to work as intended and not end up causing an injury, especially if the product was not particularly dangerous, to begin with. The injuries caused by a defective product can range from the mild to the severe, but no matter the seriousness of the injury, the person who was harmed by the product deserves compensation from the manufacturer of the product.  Follow the steps below if injured by defective products. 

In order to get that compensation, the help of an experienced personal injury attorney is invaluable. If you live in Florida, then you can contact the Abercrombie Personal Injury Law Firm to get the representation that you need. No matter where you live, these are the steps you need to take when you have been injured by a defective product.

You Need to Have Suffered an Injury Because of The Defective Product

This may seem like an obvious point to make, but you need to have been injured by the defective product in order to file a claim. You do not have a case if the product malfunctions but does not cause any harm. Not even if it was a close call. This might seem unfair, especially because another person could be much less lucky and get injured by the same product. So even if you want to sue simply to get the word out about the defective product and the damage that it is capable of causing, you will not be able to do so by making a claim against the manufacturer. 

You can file a product liability claim for financial injury if the defective product caused damage to your home or to other products you own, but unless the damage was extensive and costly, it might not be worth the time because product liability cases can get expensive.

You Must Prove That The Product Is Defective

This is the most important aspect of a product liability claim. You need to be able to prove that the defectiveness of the product is what causes you to get injured. Most manufacturers will fight these cases hard because of the bad PR engendered by such a claim. They will typically try to blame the injury on user error instead. So you should be prepared for a fight if you plan on making a product liability claim.

You Need to Choose Which Type of Product Liability Claim To Pursue

There are three different types of product liability claims, and you need to decide which of them applies to you before you file your claim.

A Defectively Manufactured Product

This is when a product is defective because there was an error in the manufacturing process that caused it to be less safe than other products in that line. One example is if a bottle of medicine got tainted with a substance that made the user ill. There are other examples, but it must be a defect of the product that caused the injury. If a product is defective, but the injury was caused by user error, then that user may not have a claim.

A Defectively Designed Product

This is when a product is inherently dangerous because of the way it was designed. A recent, well-known example of this is the case concerning Takata airbags. A design defect in the way they were designed could cause metal shards to spray out when the airbag was deployed. This led to a huge recall of vehicles outfitted with Takata airbags. That is an extreme example, but any defectively designed product that caused an injury can be the grounds for a product liability claim. 

The Failure To Provide An Adequate Warning

In this case, the product may not necessarily be defective, but the instructions on how to use it correctly, or warnings against using it in a certain way, are unclear or non-existent. For example, if a bottle of medicine has adverse effects when taken with alcohol and there is not a warning on the label to indicate that, then the manufacturer can be held liable if anyone gets sick by doing so. As is the case with the other types of product liability, you can only file a claim if the lack of a warning is what caused the injury.

You Need To Prove That You Were Using The Product As Intended

A successful product liability claim also hinges on the fact that the injured person was using the product in the way that it was intended to be used. So, if you overdosed on medicine that was meant to be taken in moderation, then you may not be able to claim that there was a product liability that caused you to get sick. If you got injured even after you followed the directions and heeded the warnings included with the product, then you can file a product liability claim against the manufacturer.

Get An Experienced Attorney

All of these steps are part of the process when injured by defective products, but the first step should always be to contact an experienced personal injury lawyer. They can help you to determine if your case has all the elements needed to file a product liability claim. If it does, then they can help you take on the manufacturer of that product so that you can get the compensation that you deserve.

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