Although they often cause catastrophic injuries, product defects and dangerous premises often go unrecognized, and consequently, are not pursued in our civil justice system. Many of the attorneys at Means Gillis Law, PC have considerable experience representing people who have been injured by defective consumer and industrial products.
We handle a wide range of defective products cases, including vehicle rollovers, tire failures, helmet failures, defective medical equipment, and adulterated and foreign objects in food.
More often than not, recovering damages from the manufacturer of a defective product involves extremely complex litigation, using experts in many scientific disciplines. Generally, product defects which cause injuries fall into the following categories:
Design Defect: The manufacturer of a product may fail to design it in such a way that it is reasonably safe for its intended and/or foreseeable uses.
Manufacturing Defect: In some cases, a product has been designed safely, but a problem in the manufacturing process has rendered it defective and unreasonably dangerous.
Inadequate Warnings/Packaging/Marketing Defect: Sometimes, products cannot be designed and manufactured in a way that all risks of injury to the user are eliminated. In such situations, the manufacturer of the product is required to place an effective warning on the product or its packaging which informs the user of the risk of injury, as well as how to avoid it. The maker of a product can be held liable for injuries caused by a hazard of which he was aware, but failed to warn the consumer or user.
The ability to recognize product liability issues is undoubtedly one of the most important skills of the successful product liability lawyer. Unfortunately, because product defects frequently do not cause the incident in which the injury is sustained, but instead make the injuries more severe, product defects are overlooked.
For example, consider a case in which drugs or alcohol was involved in a car crash. While intoxication caused the crash in the first place, the driver’s injuries from the crash may be more severe because of the vehicle’s lack of durability in a crash (i.e. “crash- worthiness”). Similarly, while cooking oil accidentally left on a stove may be the immediate cause of a household fire, a defective smoke alarm or security system may be the cause of death by smoke inhalation or severe burns.
Product liability issues may be involved in many situations where a person has been catastrophically injured or killed. The products liability attorneys of Means Gillis Law, PC have handled the following types of products liability cases:
Consumer Products
Household Products
Industrial Products
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