Ever since the 1950s and the advent of convenience appliances, consumer products have been growing more and more disposable and customers have come to expect the goods they purchase to wear out quickly. However, this disposability should not be confused with truly defective products, which are dangerous to the consumer and cause serious personal injuries.

If you have been the victim of harm caused by a defective product, you may believe that your actions played a part in the accident and therefore negate your rights to file a defective product lawsuit. However, if you discuss your claim with a defective product lawyer, you may discover you are entitled to take legal action and receive a settlement for your losses.

Product Liability Law

Defective products fall under product liability law, an area of our legal system familiar to most of the population because of the headline-grabbing incidences of defective automobiles, medications or medical devices.

Product liability laws govern the standards and applications of consumer protection against hazardous or faulty products distributed by designers, manufacturers and retailers. Product liability laws are slightly different in each state; for this reason, in some states the burden of proof may rest more heavily on the plaintiff, or the victim, while in other states the designers, manufacturers or distributors are placed in the hot seat during the trial.

Theories of Product Liability

Product liability theories are applied to defective product cases to determine whether the defendant's actions or inactions were adequate to find them guilty as charged.

Negligence, which differs from carelessness, is one theory of liability. To be negligent the defendants behavior must have fallen far short the standard of care legally expected of them as a product manufacturer or distributor.

Strict liability, another theory of product liability, simply means that the defendant is legally responsible for damages caused by the product regardless of their culpability, or actions of free will.

Breach of warranty, the third theory of liability under defective products cases, means that the written or verbal agreement about the effectiveness of the product was not upheld, nor true.

The Three Types of Product Liability

Product liability can be determined through three major claims: failure-to-warn and marketing defects, design defects or manufacturing defects in combination with the three theories explained above. Design defects are the result of an inherently hazardous or useless design, manufacturing defects may result from poor workmanship or the use of low-quality materials and failure-to-warn defects result when a product is dangerous in a non-obvious way, but distributed without adequate warning of the danger, all of which are considered negligence.

Determining product liability in a defective product lawsuit is difficult and best left to professionals to assess and prove. Call a defective product attorney immediately after any injury caused by a consumer product to find out more about your rights.