Houston Product Liability Attorney
According to Chapter 82 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, an individual can bring an action for products liability against a manufacturer or seller of a product if they suffered personal injuries, death or property damages from the defective product.
A defective product is any product that does not work or function as it is supposed to due to a defective design, defective manufacturing or marketing defects.
If you have suffered a personal injury due to a product that was negligently made, it is essential to immediately contact an experienced Houston product liability lawyer at Ben Bronston & Associates. You may be barred from filing a lawsuit against the negligent party for your injuries after the statute of limitations has run. A statute of limitations or SOL prevents an individual from filing a lawsuit for their damages after a specified time period has passed. According to section 16.003 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, the statute of limitations for most personal injury claims is two years in Texas. Ben Bronston & his team can help you determine if your particular situation qualifies for a product liability claim.
Types of Product Liability
Product liability can be caused by almost any product. Unfortunately, even with strict regulations injuries occur every year.
For example, toy-related injuries that required emergency services have been fairly consistent over the last 5 years.
There are four main types of liability that may come into play concerning your product liability suit. Depending on your situation, one or more of the following areas may be key to demonstrating the merit of your case and proving you are deserving of compensation for your injury.
Express Warranty
An express warranty refers to a warranty statement that a product manufacturer or seller creates. Designers may write this warranty on the product packaging. Anything the manufacturer or designers write on the packaging about what the product does, or how buyers should use the product, is part of the express warranty of the product.
The instructions that come with the product also form an express warranty, indicating that the product is safe when the buyers use it according to the instructions. The consumer has the right to expect that the product is safe for use according to the express warranty found in the instructions.
If the product comes with warranty information, this is one of the most obvious forms of express warranty, and guarantees that buyers can use the product safely according to the usage instructions for an expressed period of time.
Any store signage indicating the product is for use for a certain activity constitutes an express warranty. The store is expressing that the product is safe for use for the activity the signage indicates.
Advertising for the product also constitutes express warranty. The advertiser is expressing that the product is safe for use for the activities the ads mention or demonstrate. The advertiser might be the manufacturer of the product or a third-party seller.
Implied Warranty
An implied warranty is not an express guarantee by a manufacturer or seller in writing, but is instead implicit in the sale of the item. The seller and/or manufacturer imply that the product you purchase is safe to use when the buyer uses it for the purpose the manufacturer designed it to fulfill. For instance, if a consumer purchases a toaster, even if there is no express warranty, the implication is that the toaster is safe to use for toasting bread.
Use of the product outside the normal purpose for which the designer created it may not invalidate an implied warranty if the seller could reasonably expect that the consumer might use the product in that fashion, and did not explicitly make clear that buyers could not use the product for that purpose. For example, microwave ovens are used to heat food and other items. However, certain objects, like metal are listed in the instruction manual as unsafe materials due to their conductivity and potential fire hazard properties. Although this is common knowledge for many people, it is not unreasonable to suspect a consumer may use a microwave to heat a wide range of items, including potentially dangerous materials. Therefore an implied warranty may extend to certain uses of the microwave, but would not apply to all cases.
Negligence
If the manufacturer fails to take proper precautions to ensure that the product created and sold is safe for the consumer, the company may be guilty of negligence. A company’s leadership has a duty to ensure that the products they sell are reasonably safe for use, and, if they fail to meet that duty of care, the courts may find them guilty of negligence.
Strict Product Liability
Strict product liability lawsuits go beyond making a claim of negligence on the part of the manufacturer, and instead merely make the case that a defect in the product was the cause of the injury, regardless of whether the manufacturer made sure their product was reasonably safe or not. In a strict liability case, the consumer may need to show that they were not aware of the danger of the product, or could not reasonably have avoided the injury.
Intentional Misrepresentation
If a manufacturer knows or learns that a defect in the product makes it unsafe and yet conceals that information, the company may be liable for an intentional misrepresentation suit. The compensation for intentional misrepresentation suits may often be much higher than that involving other suits, as the company may face punitive damages in some cases.
Proving a Product Liability Case
While each case may differ depending on the type of liability claim, in most cases, you will need to prove each of the following to succeed in a product liability suit:
- There was an injury – it might be you or a loved one.
- The product that caused the injury was defective.
- The defect in the product was the cause of your injury.
- The user was engaging with the product as the manufacturer intended.
Some products, like scissors for example, are inherently dangerous. Accidentally cutting yourself with scissors is unlikely to merit a product liability claim. In most cases, it will be necessary to demonstrate that there was some defect in the product, and that even though you practiced reasonable care, the product hurt you. Your attorney will help you establish the merits of your case and can tell you if your particular case warrants pursuing a product liability claim.
Who Is Liable in a Product Liability Claim?
It can be difficult to identify all the parties that are liable in a product liability case. In general, everyone in the chain of distribution of a product bears some liability in the case. Because of “joint and several” liability, the party is collectively liable (joint liability) as well as individually liable (several liability). Even if one defendant is unable to pay for his or her liability, the rest of the parties must still make up the total. For this reason, it is usually best to hold all possible parties responsible in the product manufacturing and distribution chain.
The Manufacturer’s Liability
There are often many different companies involved in the manufacture of a product. The first name that comes to mind, an auto manufacturer such as Ford or Chevy for example, is only the most significant contributor to the manufacturing process. Multiple manufacturers are often involved in building individual components that go into the final product. It may be necessary to find each of those manufacturers and determine exactly which components were defective to track down all the parties that are liable in a product liability claim.
Additionally, companies who are part of the design of the product as well as its manufacture may be liable as well. A separate company or companies may be involved in product safety testing, and they could be liable for unsafe defects as well in a product liability suit.
Wholesalers and Product Distributors Are Part of the Distribution Chain
By selling the product that injured you to the retailer who in turn sells the product to you, wholesalers become part of the distribution chain that led to your injury from using the defective product. While they may have been unaware of the product defect that led to your injury, they assumed some responsibility for the safety of the products they sold, and are therefore liable in a product liability suit as well.
Retailers are Liable for the Products They Sell
The company you purchased the product from is the end of the distribution chain, and is also somewhat responsible. As a distributor, they are responsible for the safe use of the products they sell. Should the courts award you compensation for your injury, it will be up to the responsible parties to decide who bears what level of responsibility, and how much they should contribute to the total payout of compensation. For the person injured by the product, what is important is that all parties who are part of the manufacture and distribution of the unsafe product bear the weight of this responsibility, and compensate you for your injuries.
Who May Sue in a Product Liability Case?
It may seem obvious that if you are injured while using a product you bought, that you are due compensation for a product liability case, but you may be surprised to learn that you may be due compensation even if you did not buy a product, or were not using the product.
The most common product liability cases do involve someone who bought a product and was using it when the defect caused injury. Certainly, in this case, it may be easier to obtain information about the product packaging paperwork and the store that sold the product originally. In these cases, producing the required information may be as simple as locating the product’s original paperwork, including the sales receipts.
However, in many cases, a product may hurt people who did not purchase it. Consider the case where you are riding as a passenger in a friend’s car and suffer an accident. If the seat belt failed to protect you as the manufacturer intended, you may have a case for a product liability suit even though you did not purchase the car. If you were to borrow a friend’s lawnmower for use in your yard and a product defect caused the blade to break off, injuring you in the process, you may still seek compensation for your injuries.
Additionally, you are not even required to use the product that hurt you to receive compensation. Consider the lawnmower example above. If, when the blade broke off, it also injured a nearby bystander, that person may be eligible to collect compensation for his or her injuries as well, though this person had not purchased the product and was not using it when the injury occurred.
Because product liability suits are often complicated, and may require a great deal of resources to track down all the parties involved in the manufacturing and distribution chain, it is always best to consult an attorney for assistance in getting the proper compensation for a product liability injury.