A products liability claim consists of an injury caused by the reasonable use of a product. These claims arise out of three situations:

1) When a product is designed improperly and causes injury;

2) When a product is designed properly but fails and causes injury; or,

3) When a product is not properly labeled to warn of potential injury.

Just because a person is injured from a product, does not auto-matically mean there is a case or that the product caused the injury. Many times, an injury occurs when someone uses the product in a way not intended by the manufacturer. For example, children’s scooters cause injuries to their riders all the time, however, most injuries result from improper or negligent use by the rider him or herself.

Here are three examples of product liability claims.

Improperly designed product: A pressure cooker is designed so that the opening latch is not properly linked with the pres-sure gauge to keep it closed until the pressure is fully re-leased. The user opens the latch and hot liquid spews out of the cooker causing burn injuries.

Failed product: A tire is properly designed, but during the construction of the tire, the steel belts improperly rust and fail while a driver is traveling at 65 mph. The car flips and results in paralyzing injuries.

Lack of Proper Warning: A medication is issued for use for treatment of a particular disease. The manu-facturer of the pharmaceutical knows the medication has cer-tain side effects, which if the medication is used for an ex-tended period of time, will cause liver failure. The manu-facturer fails to include a prop-er warning on the bottle or label regarding the side effect. The drug causes injury by the reasonable use of the product. Strict liability applies to prod-uct liability claims. This means that negligence is not a prereq-uisite to the claim. However, one injured by a product, must prove one of the above scenar-ios and the product was being used in a reasonable manner.

David Ricks
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Rancho Cucamonga Personal Injury Lawyer Serving the Inland Empire Community