Product Liability

Contact Demerath Law today to find your Hastings product liability attorney.

The current media outlets seem to run a new story on products liability every few weeks or so. Product liability is an area of law that deals with consumer goods, or "things", that injure people even if the "things" are used as they were intended. Not clear on that? Well, remember the Ford and Firestone tire fiasco. Drivers used these tires just as the manufacturer intended, but the tires still failed. These tires were considered a defective product, and product liability law allowed consumers to recover for their losses and injuries.

A product may be considered defective by design. For example, a diet drug is supposed to aid people to lose weight. When people take that drug as prescribed, and they damage their heart valves as a result, that drug is defective. The drug in question was not made defective during manufacturing or sale. It was defective in design. Damage caused by the drug was recoverable under the law of product liability.

Products may become defective during the manufacturing process, too. Imagine a cd-rom drive that is impeccably designed. However, the manufacturer decides to use a cheap but ineffective cleaning apparatus during assembly. Because of the dust and debris found in the cd-rom drive, the drives catch fire. Under product liability law, the cd-rom drive is defective because of the method of manufacturing.