What is Liability Law?

Liability law is the very broad area of law involving fault. The areas of liability law most relevant to personal injury cases are products liability law and landowner or premises liability law. Landowner liability law governs fault for injuries incurred on a landowner's property, such as slips, falls, exposure to hazardous materials, or accidents caused by faulty construction. Products liability law, on the other hand, involves personal injury lawsuits concerning defective and dangerous products.

If you've sustained an injury due to a defective product, you should look into hiring a personal injury attorney as soon as possible to asses the situation. If your injury was directly caused by one of three types of product defects, namely design defects, manufacturing defects or marketing defects, you will have a very strong claim under products liability law.

Your personal injury attorney will help you to sort through details and determine what exactly is to blame for your injury. If you file a lawsuit and win, you can expect not only to collect money to help cover medical expenses and lost wages, but you can also stop a company from continuing to manufacture dangerous products.

Most offenses under products liability law are strict liability offenses, which means that they are punishable regardless of the company's intent. In other words, it does not matter in a court of law if a manufacturer tried their very hardest to make a safe product. No matter how much effort was put into safety, the company will be liable if the product caused harm.

Strict liability cases comprise the majority of product liability cases. However, your personal injury attorney may think that you have a stronger case for negligence. Filing a lawsuit against a manufacturer for negligence means that your personal injury attorney will be arguing that the company's negligence directly or indirectly caused your injury.

A good personal injury attorney will have lots of experience pinpointing the negligent behavior that is to blame for your injury. Most often this involves companies that ignore industry safety standards or that do not follow proper manufacturing guidelines. A personal injury attorney can also help you file a lawsuit if the product that caused your injury did not come with safe operating or installation instructions.