Product Liability

Design defects happen when the product is inherently dangerous and has no safe use. In other words, it will always be defective, no matter how you use it.

One of the most famous examples of a design defect comes from a child’s game. Lawn darts was a game in which players threw large, sharp darts at a target lying on the lawn. The U.S. banned these products after dozens of injuries occurred when the darts harmed people.

These products were not safe to use because they were designed to stick to the lawn. This same characteristic also made them dangerous to people.

A manufacturing defect occurs when the product fails to meet its design specifications. As a result, the product lacks the safety features designed for it. A product with a manufacturing defect has a safe use. But the manufacturing defect made that product unsafe.

A well-known case involving manufacturing defects happened in the 1990s. Tires manufactured at one Bridgestone/Firestone factory had a layer of adhesive in their tread layers that was too thin. This caused the tire treads to separate, leading drivers to lose control of their vehicles. The nature of the defect also made SUVs more likely to roll over during emergency maneuvers.

In this case, the tire manufacturer designed safe tires. But one factory misapplied the adhesive, turning a safe design into a dangerous product.

Warning defects happen to products that have safe uses and that have been manufactured to their design specifications. However, these products have dangerously deficient instructions that fail to explain how to use the product safely or warn against known misuse. Due to the instructional defect, users are unable to protect themselves from injuries the product is known to cause when misused.

An example of a warning defect is asbestos. One of the allegations against asbestos manufacturers is that they knew as early as 1924 that breathing asbestos dust caused lung cancer. But they never warned their customers, installers, and users of the dangers and failed to advise the use of masks when working with the material.

Separate from proving that a product is defective, you can also pursue a breach of warranty. In this claim, you assert that the manufacturer or seller sold you a product that was not fit for its intended purpose. Even if it performed the advertised functions, it failed to meet your expectations or needs because it harmed you.

Breach of warranty is often used as a backup claim to product liability. It can come into play when a product’s issues malfunction and injure you even if they do not quite rise to the level of a “defect.”

An example of a product that breached its warranty of fitness was the medication thalidomide. This drug was prescribed to pregnant people to treat morning sickness. It worked but caused birth defects as a side effect.

This product is still used effectively to treat cancers and leprosy. But when used as a morning sickness treatment for pregnant people, it was not fit for its intended use since it injured the baby who triggered the sickness.

Negligence happens when a person or entity fails to exercise reasonable care and injures someone as a result. This theory is not used often in product liability cases because you must prove the manufacturer knew or should have known of the dangers their product posed.

But this theory can work in cases where your lawyer uncovers the proverbial smoking gun memo that shows the manufacturer knew of the defect and worked to conceal it. For example, in the Takata airbag cases, the company might have known for years that its airbag inflators could malfunction before it notified any government regulators to initiate a product recall.