California products liability theories

There are many consumer products that can cause serious injury including, for example, defective children’s toys or auto parts. After you have suffered a serious injury, a product recall may be an insufficient remedy for you. An alternative may be a products liability lawsuit. Lawsuits involve intricate issues, many potential defendants, and focus on issues such as mislabeling, negligent or faulty design, and general manufacturing defects regarding the item that caused your injury.

Consider a defective heart medicine tablet. If the product inadvertently contained a toxic material, it is a manufacturing flaw. If you took the same medicine without toxic components and suffered a heart attack as a result of the medication, that is a design flaw. If the pharmaceutical company designed and made the heart medicine pill carefully, but did not warn about its unsafe combination with another drug that you then took, that would be a labeling defect.

Defective design claims are brought because of the fundamental danger of the product — even if the product and its design fit the manufacturer’s requirements. For instance, a car model that has problems with its electronic system. If you purchased the car with the defect, and got hurt while the car door suddenly open due to a glitch with the electronic system, you have a design defect claim.

Sometimes a product is inherently unsafe — there may have been a manufacturing defect at the factory, making it different from all the others for sale. For example, an acid reflux medicine may have included a poisonous component, or a motorcycle with a faulty disk brake that resulted in an accident trying to avoid an oncoming vehicle.

Mislabeling claims involve a company’s failure to give appropriate instructions or warnings about a product’s correct use, especially when that product requires unique precautions when using it, such as a cold medicine that does not warn you about which other medications to avoid while on the drug.

Some lawsuits may include multiple alleged concerns with the product. And in some situations, there may be many potential defendants in those lawsuits, including manufacturers, design experts and others within the manufacturing and distribution chain. If you have been involved in a products liability lawsuit, contact Steven P. Roberts Personal Injury Lawyers.