Product purchases are often made with confidence because we trust manufacturers. The purchases are made without regard for potential manufacturing, design, or marketing defects. Unfortunately, injuries and deaths can occur due to everyday products. To build a solid product liability claim, defects require proof of negligence or a warranty breach. With an experienced personal injury attorney on your side, you can hold manufacturing companies accountable for injuries or even the death of a loved one.
A product can become defective due to improper design, manufacturing, or marketing efforts. Even when a product was manufactured correctly, built-in faults are possible. Poor safety specifications and mistakes that happen during assembly can lead to defects.
The manufacturer can be held liable for failing to provide product safety instructions or adequate warning labels within the standards set by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). The suppliers and distributors of a product can also be held liable for missing or insufficient warning labels.
The ANSI warning label guidelines require that labels be easy to read. These labels should contain detailed explanations and illustrations of safety risks. Both literate and illiterate individuals must be able to comprehend the labels.
It is important to document product liability injuries and deaths. Such documentation will support filing a claim, completing a full investigation, as well as obtaining compensation for pain, suffering, and mental anguish. Compensation for medical expenses and physical impairments requires quality records. Documentation should include pictures of the defective product, pictures of the injuries, the product purchase receipts and a description of the incident.
Depending on whether or not misuse was “reasonably foreseeable” to a manufacturer, the manufacturing company can be held liable for injuries resulting from a consumer’s misuse or abuse of their products. Unfortunately, consumer product misuse and abuse is common and sometimes ends up on the internet as video challenges such as the “consume laundry detergent challenge”, “swallow a spoonful of cinnamon challenge” and the “rubber eraser on your skin while reciting the alphabet challenge”.
Companies have a responsibility to evaluate the potential uses and misuses of their products to determine if they need to act with respect to any such “misuses.” Manufacturers may not need to change their products or their warnings to avoid liability in cases of extremely blatant consumer misuse.
A consumer must prove that an injury was caused by a reasonably foreseeable misuse of a product and that the manufacturer should have known about such risks either when it sold the product or even later, post-sale. The more often consumer misuse or abuse occurs, the more likely a court is to determine that the manufacturer should have foreseen the misuse. Sad to say, the courts do not always provide clear or predictable guidance on these issues and product liability rulings have varied wildly.
Defective products could be those that we use every day; such as cars, vehicle parts, tires, medications, medication packaging, medical devices, children’s toys, furniture, cooking products, appliances and many other products.
KC Road Lawyers understands that injuries and the loss of a loved one is painful and that dealing with the repercussions can be overwhelming. We have extensive knowledge of Missouri product liability laws and the experience to help you navigate the claims process. We believe companies should be held accountable for defective products that we as consumers trust to be safe.
Call Day or Night for an Experienced Product Liability Attorney
If you have any questions about product liability or need to retain an experienced product liability attorney in Missouri, contact attorney Chris Benjamin at KC Road Lawyers by calling 816-425-2420 or navigating to our contact page for a consultation at the firm’s Lee’s Summit or Butler Missouri offices.