A lot of money is at stake in product liability cases. The average award in these lawsuits exceeds $3 million. Even if you throw out those on the very high end of the spectrum, the median award is still north of $1 million. It bears asking—what is product liability? And how is it defined?
A product makes multiple stops on its way to the marketplace, from the manufacturer to the wholesaler and finally to the retailer where it’s sold. Product liability is the responsibility these parties have for any defect in the product.
It is further understood that this area of law applies only to tangible property.
What’s more, the product must be sold in a marketplace where such transactions are the normal course of business. That’s the legal way of saying you can’t sue your neighbor for something you bought at their garage sale.
Who can file a product liability claim?
It used to be that only the purchaser or user of the product could file a lawsuit. But that has developed into allowing legal standing to anyone whose injuries could have been reasonably foreseen.
But the injury must have resulted from something directly pertaining to the defect. For example, the lamp you bought might have had an electrical defect. But if your injury came from putting your hand on a hot light bulb, you don’t have a case.
Or let’s say you went and bought some office supplies. If you’re running with scissors and end up injuring someone, there’s no lawsuit to be filed. You were using the product in a manner clearly not intended.
Do I have to prove intent?
No. If the product was used as instructed and caused an injury, the good intentions of those in the supply chain don’t matter. So don’t worry—you don’t have to obtain warrants for internal emails trying to prove a corporate conspiracy. The simple fact the product failed is sufficient. In legal terms, this is strict liability.
3 kinds of product defects
The first type of product liability defect is design. In this case, the product, by its very nature, was not going to work. An example of this would be a car whose airbag design guarantees that any collision will virtually smother the driver.
The second type of defect is in manufacturing. In this case, there’s a workable design, but someone on the assembly line made an error. To continue with our airbag analogy, if it was the installation that caused it to balloon too aggressively, then you have a case for a manufacturing defect.
The third defect is marketing. Here we have a well-designed product that’s been produced as intended. But perhaps the labeling was not accurate. This can commonly occur with medications or any other type of substance that could create a problem if it was improperly mixed.
Understanding where the defect came from is important because that determines who the target is in the lawsuit.