Most of us don’t anticipate that a product will harm us when we make a purchase. Accidents are often caused by human error or random chance, so dismissing the possibility of a defective item causing injury is easy.
In fact, many people don’t even consider a defective product when trying to determine how they were hurt, but an experienced Dekalb County personal injury lawyer can help you investigate the cause.
At the same time, we often meet clients who struggle to explain how their injuries happened; they may be certain they weren’t at fault but cannot explain what occurred. Commonly, they tell us that the item in question didn’t respond the way it usually does or something unexpected happened (such as the product catching on fire).
These situations frequently indicate a defective product.
How Can a Dekalb County Defective Product Attorney Help?
Most manufacturers have legal departments that actively work to avoid paying out defective product claims. Their efforts often focus on preventing injuries by providing clear instructions for product use or warnings about potentially dangerous situations.
However, because the manufacturer works so hard to improve product safety, proving a defective product harmed you when one slips through quality control can be challenging. The company’s lawyers will likely argue that either the product didn’t cause your injuries or you misused the product or ignored the instructions.
These situations can be very frustrating, but an experienced defective product lawyer can help by investigating your accident, compiling evidence in your favor, and developing a strategy to prove the elements of a negligence claim.
What Is Strict Liability?
Like many states, Georgia has strict liability laws for manufacturers. In most personal injury cases, it is necessary to prove the defendant (the party you’re suing) was negligent in some way.
Under strict liability, that is not necessary for defective product claims, but you will still have to prove the following:
- The defendant made the product.
- The product was in a defective condition that caused your injury when it left the manufacturer’s control. In other words, it was not defective because it was damaged in shipping, because someone tampered with it at the store, because you tinkered with it at home, etc.
- The defective product condition caused your injuries. It will be necessary to demonstrate how the injury occurred and why the defective condition led to this chain of events.
What Are the Three Different Types of Defective Product Claims?
Defective product claims are divided into three broad categories depending on the type of defect:
Design Defects
These cases involve defects that stem from an inherent flaw in the design.
Typically, all the products of a particular model will have this flaw, although not every item will harm the user. Sometimes, the item is only dangerous in specific circumstances, while others may spontaneously malfunction at any time.
One example of a design defect is the case of Zantac (or the generic ranitidine). On the market since 1983, this heartburn medication was pulled from the market in 2020 after the carcinogen NDMA was found in multiple samples of the drug.
In cases like these, the problem is sometimes limited to certain batches of medications that were contaminated with a specific harmful element. However, in the case of ranitidine, NDMA was consistently found across different batches of the product.
After further study, researchers determined that the ranitidine molecule itself is unstable, eventually degrading into NDMA over time. All ranitidine products will ultimately contain NDMA, although older products or those exposed to heat will have higher levels because more of the ranitidine has degraded.
This is an inherent flaw in the drug’s design because exposure to NDMA is considered a probable human carcinogen. Since the drug was pulled, numerous patients who took ranitidine and later developed cancer have filed lawsuits against the drug manufacturer.
Manufacturing Defects
These defects are not caused by a design flaw but by a problem in the manufacturing process. In most cases, the issue is limited to specific batches or lots, although sometimes, these groups may contain many individual products.
Once the defective lots have been identified, either the manufacturer or a government regulatory body like the Food and Drug Administration will usually recall them. However, this may take a long time.
If you are among the first people to be hurt by a defective item in one of these lots, it could be months or even years before you know what happened. Unfortunately, there have been cases where a manufacturer identified a problem, then covered it up and continued selling the product. Or the problem was not identified for an extended period of time.
Georgia’s statute of limitations on defective product claims is two years from when you learned or should have known that a defective product injured you. If you only recently discovered or suspected that a defective item may have caused an earlier injury, we urge you to contact a defective product lawyer immediately to learn more about your options.
Failure to Warn or Marketing Defects
Many products that are not necessarily defective can still be dangerous in some circumstances or if used in specific ways. As long as the manufacturer provides an adequate warning to the consumer and the product is not unreasonably dangerous, these risks are generally easy to manage.
Under Georgia law, manufacturers are not required to imagine and warn consumers about every possible use scenario. Instead, warnings should be based on anticipation of how a reasonable person might use a product.
However, in an effort to avoid liability, product manufacturers often err on the side of assuming people are not very reasonable. If you’ve ever read a warning label that seemed obvious or unnecessary, that’s probably why.
Yet there are also situations in which the manufacturer fails to warn about risks because they aren’t yet known, or the manufacturer believes they are not significant. Sometimes, the company becomes aware of the risk late, after hundreds of people have been injured and filed complaints.
Medications and medical devices often fall into this category—drugs may be tested on a small number of very healthy subjects, and as a result, some potential risks might not show up until the medication is used on a more typical and varied population.
This can also happen with consumer goods like household products or appliances that may only have been tested in laboratory conditions. The item appears safe and is put on the market, but as people use it in different conditions at home, they may encounter situations that make the product dangerous.
For example, millions of Takata airbags were recalled after reports showed many of the safety devices had exploded, causing severe injury and even death. Researchers later determined that long-term high heat or humidity exposure triggered the explosions.
What Should You Do if You Believe a Defective Product Harmed You?
If you can do so safely, we recommend preserving the product in its present condition. We may need to consult an professional to examine it and search for flaws.
If the situation warrants an official report, such as a police accident report, obtaining a copy is a good idea. The law enforcement organization that produced the report should be able to advise you on how to acquire one.
Sometimes, you can get records online, but in other cases, you may need to visit the local police department, or they might send you a copy in the mail. If there happens to be a photo or video of your accident, save a copy so we can review it.
Get treatment for your injuries right away, even if they seem mild. In many cases, people don’t realize they’re hurt at first because the adrenaline rush associated with an accident reduces their pain, or their injuries feel worse after a few hours or days.
Seeing a healthcare provider will give you a record of your injuries that you can refer to later if you need additional treatment or to show proof of your injuries.
Contact a Dekalb County Defective Product Law Firm
This is the final step to preserving your right to seek compensation. Please contact the CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm for a free consultation.
We’ll review your case, answer your questions, and explain the options for recovering your damages. There is no obligation, and if we take your case, we won’t charge you any fees until we win or settle it.
We never want people to go without legal help because of upfront costs.
Attorney Ali Awad founded the CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm just a few short years ago and has since turned it into one of the fastest-growing law firms in the country. Dedicated to helping injured people and their families, he and his team have recovered millions of dollars in client compensation.
When he’s not working on a case, Mr. Awad offers free legal advice to more than a million followers on social media. Work with the CEO Lawyer today by calling (470) 323-8779.
