How is Product Liability Determined?

Product liability is considered strict liability under the law. This means that, regardless of the levels of carefulness which the designer, manufacturer, and marketer for a particular product employs, if said product causes injury to someone when used as intended and marketed, the defendant in the case will be liable for damages.

Your personal injury attorney will look for one of three spheres of negligence. First, he or she will examine the product to make sure that it was manufactured according to safe design. If a design defect is not present, your personal injury attorney will investigate whether a manufacturing defect may be behind your injury. For instance, a child's toy may be designed with rough plastic that abrades the skin easily, and this defect in manufacture may be shown to have caused an injury to your child for which the toy company is liable.

Finally, your personally injury attorney will examine the instructions associated with the product to make sure that warnings were appropriate and plainly posted. Product liability cases are on the rise in United States -- as of 2002, over 200,000 visits to the emergency room were directly related to toy accidents. Prescription drug liability cases involving major pharmaceuticals, such as Vioxx and FenFen, have gained the international spotlight.

In some cases, the liability for a product-related accident may not be attached to the designer, distributor or manufacturer of the toy -- instead, it may be associated with the actual retailer of the toy. For instance, a negligent retailer may mis-stock a toy or sell it to a child of an inappropriate age. Similarly, packing and loading accidents may render safe toys unsafe and lead to injuries.

Your personal injury attorney will have to tease apart who is responsible and where in the design-to-use continuum the defect/problem with the toy occurred that led to the accident.