Product Liability
The LA product liability lawyers at Martin Stanley Law often help people like you who have been injured by defective and dangerous products. Every year across California and the United States, thousands of people are injured by products they use. The law governing such injuries is slightly different than for that of other types of personal injury cases; the difference often makes the process easier for you to recover damages. When you have been injured by a dangerous or defective product, you may be able to sue the manufacturers, sellers, and others responsible for putting that product in the marketplace. Under the law, a product you use must carry with it an ordinary expectation of its safety. When the product instead poses a hazard or risk that should not have been reasonably expected, you may have grounds to sue for your injuries.
Who Is Responsible?
One of the first tasks your LA product liability lawyers will have is to determine all of the players who should be named as defendants to your lawsuit. It doesn’t matter if you were not the person who actually purchased the product. If you were injured by it, you can sue for your injuries even if it was purchased by someone else. Your LA product liability lawyers will start by identifying all parties who were responsible for bringing the product through the chain of distribution to the store where it was sold. Potential defendants can include the manufacturer of the product, a component manufacturer, an assembly company, a wholesaler, and the retail store where it was purchased. Any of these parties may be held to be strictly liable, which implies that they may be responsible for paying your damages even if they were not specifically aware of the danger posed by it. In order for this theory to hold, though, the product must have been sold in the regular conduct of business.
Product Defect Types
On your behalf, your LA product liability lawyers will need to be able to show that the product was defective, the defect in it caused your injuries, and that it was unreasonably hazardous. There are three main types of product defects, which can include defects in design which existed from the start, defects in manufacturing, and marketing defects.
Proving Responsibility
If your case involves a strict liability claim, you and your LA product liability lawyers will only need to demonstrate that the product was defective. In this scenario, you will not need to prove that the defendants were negligent. In other cases, the law has a legal theory that shifts the burden of proof to the defendants. They would be required to prove they were not negligent, rather than your having to prove they were.
Unavoidably Unsafe Products
As your LA product liability lawyers will explain, there are certain types of products that cannot be made safe. For example, knives must be sharp or they couldn’t be used to cut things. For those types of products, your lawyers will examine whether appropriate safety warnings were given. If they were not, you still might have a case.
Common Defenses
You should expect that the defendants you name in your lawsuit will defend against it. Often, they might try to argue that you have not identified the correct responsible parties who supplied it. This argument is often raised because plaintiffs have to identify the companies that actually manufactured and supplied the product. When your injury was caused by a medication you took, however, an exception may apply. It is sometimes impossible to identify which pharmaceutical company actually supplied the drug needed to manufacture the medication, and so the companies can share responsibility according to their market shares. Another common defense you might expect is the product manufacturer’s claim that you somehow altered the product in a way that made it dangerous. Similarly, they might try to argue that the manner in which you used the product was itself an unreasonable use, rendering the product dangerous.
Contact LA Product Liability Lawyers
These types of cases are difficult. You should expect that you might have to use experts to demonstrate that the product was defective. Identifying the correct theories upon which your claim should be based as well as identifying all of the potential defendants can be a complex process. You should seek out legal help if you have been injured by a defective product. Your attorney may be better-equipped to identify all the potential legal grounds and to track down all of the defendants who should be named. Legal assistance can help make it more likely you will be successful. To schedule a consultation with the LA product liability lawyers at Martin Stanley Law, call our office at 310-399-2555 today.
