Products Liability

Overview Product liability has been referred to as strict liability. Strict liability imposes liability against a defendant for providing a product that contained a manufacturing defect, or that was defectively designed or did not include sufficient instructions or warnings of potential safety hazards. Under Negligence Law, the defendant is liable only if he or she was negligent. The attorneys at Cheong, Denove, Rowell & Bennett have been helping clients injured by defective products for almost 30 years. What is Products Liability? When someone is injured by a product, the manufacturer and others who distribute the product may be responsible if the product was defective. Thus, if a tow bar breaks because of imperfections in the steel used or the design of the structure and the result is an injury or death, the tow bar maker and seller must compensate those injured by the product’s failure. Additionally, a product may be defective in design. When, because of the design, a product causes injury, the manufacturer and others who distribute the product may be responsible if (1) the product failed to perform as safely as a reasonable consumer would expect, or (2) the benefits of the design chosen by the manufacturer are outweighed by the risks inherent in the design. For example, Ford determined to locate the gas tank of the Pinto behind the rear axle and adjacent to bolts. When it did crash testing, Ford learned that when the Pinto was struck from the rear, the gas tank would be crushed and punctured causing fires. Instead of relocating the gas tank, as Ford’s own engineers requested, which would have cost about $1.50 per car, Ford went ahead and sold the Pinto with this dangerous design. Many people unnecessarily died in car fires and many others were horribly injured. In Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co., a case which one of our firm’s partners worked on, Ford was found liable for burn injuries. Other recent examples of defective products include SUVs such as the Explorer, which are prone to rollover, tires, such as Firestone Steeltex AT, which lose their tread and fail unexpectedly during operation because of their design; and defective and/or aggressive air bags, which put out a passenger’s eye or break necks. When products cause injury, such as in an accident caused by a defective tire, this specialized area of the law applies.

In the News: Ford Hit With $23.4M SUV Rollover Award Federal Grand Jury Subpoenas Toyota documents Ford recalls cars, trucks on front-seat collapse risk Hyundai Reclining Seat Kills In Car Accident Products Liability Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against Suzuki   John Rowell inspecting brake line failure area

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This type of claim requires a lawyer who is comfortable cross-examining mechanics, engineers, pilots, experts, and medical doctors. Success in this area is dependent on the lawyer’s knowledge of the special area of engineering involved and a knowledge of other similar claims across the country. For almost 30 years attorneys at Cheong, Denove, Rowell & Bennett have successfully prosecuted cases relating to personal injury and wrongful death as a result of products liability and motor vehicle accidents. With respect to automobile-related injuries, they have represented clients in claims of defective tire design and manufacture, defective gas tank placement and design, defectively weak roofs and doors, defective seatbacks which collapse in rear-end collisions, defective wheel design and manufacture, defective design and manufacture of air bag systems and seatbelts, and defective design and manufacture of ignition modules and brakes.

The attorneys have prosecuted claims of defective airplane design and manufacture in connection with the Paris, Bali, San Diego, Chicago and Tenerife air crash disasters. They have handled hundreds of cases for victims of motor vehicle accidents and unsafe products. He has taken on many corporate giants, including General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Freight Liner, Honda, Isuzu, Subaru, Nissan, Toyota, Goodyear, Goodrich, Firestone, Bridgestone, Boeing, McDonald Douglas, Hyundai, Caterpillar, Greyhound and others. John D. Rowell, of Cheong, Denove, Rowell & Bennett has served on state and national plaintiffs’ committees in a number of products liability cases. The Defect Must Be a Cause of the Injury.

Examining a defective Firestone tire

Some attorneys mistakenly believe that when a product has been recalled because of a product defect, liability is automatically established. This is incorrect. To establish liability the plaintiff needs to prove not only a product defect, but the defect was a substantial factor in causing the injury. The jury is instructed that "a substantial factor in causing harm is a factor that a reasonable person would consider to have contributed to the harm. It must be more than a remote or trivial factor. It does not have to be the only cause of the harm. Conduct is not a substantial factor in causing harm if the same harm would have occurred without that conduct." CACI 430

(CACI are the approved jury instructions from the Judicial Council of California. Jury instructions are read to the jury by the judge and establish the law the jury must follow in deciding the case. A partner of Cheong, Denove, Rowell & Bennett has been formally recognized as one of the attorneys who assisted the task force in the preparation of these jury instructions.)

Often the manufacturer will often argue that the product was not the cause of the plaintiffs injuries. Crash tests and computer animation are often useful in demonstrating that the defect was a cause of injury. An example of using a crash test with computer animation appear on the boxes to the right. Click on the images to see the Mechanism of Injury Animation.

Who Can Be Liable Under Products Liability?

Obviously, the entity that manufactures the defective product can be held  liable. Once the product leaves the manufacturing plant, other entities may also be held liable. These entities include the distributor, and even  the retailer who sells the product to the consumer. Even if a product is defective before it ever reaches the distributor or retailer, they can be held liable for the defect. In order for there to be liability, the injured  person must prove that the defendant either manufactured, produced, distributed or sold the defective product.

What Constitutes a Defect?

 A product which was not manufactured according to specification
 A product which malfunctions
 A product which differs from the manufacturer’s intended result
 A product which fails to match the quality of similar products
 A product design which did not perform as safely as an ordinary consumer would have expected it to perform
 A product that lacked sufficient instructions or failed to warn of potential risks, side effects, or allergic reactions

Common Defenses

Defendants in products liability cases often raise the following defenses:

 The product was not defective
 The product was altered after it left the manufacturer, distributor or retailer
 The product was misused
 The product was used in a way that was not reasonably foreseeable by the defendant
 The product was not manufactured, distributed or sold by the defendant
 The product performed as safely as an ordinary consumer would have expected
 The product’s design benefits outweighed the risks of the design
 The product’s alleged defect was not a cause of the plaintiff’s injury or harm.
 The plaintiff was negligent in using the product and his negligence was a cause of the injury or harm
 Someone other than the defendant was negligent and that person’s negligence was the cause of the injury or harm
 The product was tampered with after the accident

How Does the Plaintiff Prove a Products Liability Case?

The simple answer is "not easily." The defendant in a products liability action has the desire and monetary resources to hire the most experienced attorneys and expert witnesses to try to defeat the plaintiff’s claim.

The plaintiff’s attorney must be knowledgeable and experienced in handling products liability cases or the plaintiff will be fighting an uphill battle to begin with. The following is just some of the work that must be done: 

 Identify the manufacturer of not only the product, but its component parts
 Establish facts to enable filing the action in a location or venue most favorable to the plaintiff
 Obtain and secure the product
 Choose the correct experts to inspect the product
 Ascertain why the product failed
 Discover what made the product defective
 Obtain, read, and understand the relevant documents pertaining to research, design, development and manufacture of the product
 Anticipate and defeat the potential defenses
 Network with other lawyers throughout the United States who may have information concerning the product
Prepare for and depose the defendant’s experts
 Prepare demonstrative exhibits to illustrate how the product was defective and how the product caused the harm
 Effectively present the evidence to the jury
 Have the knowledge and ability to persuade the judge to exclude improper defenses and evidence offered by the defense at trial

Automobile Products Liability Cases

Products come in all shapes, sizes and uses. The following is a list of some product defects in an automobile that can cause injury, paralysis and death:

Design and manufacture of passenger and light truck tires
 Roof crush resistance
Failed or bad body welds
Failure to use safety glass
Air bag deployment systems and air bag sensor systems
Seat and seat back failures
Placement and construction of seatbelts and seatbelt latches
Door latch mechanisms and automatic door lock devices
Fuel pump systems
Design and placement of fuel tanks
Design and manufacture of fuel tank filler necks
Lack of proper passenger compartment padding
Parking/emergency brakes and cabling
Service brake systems
Child restraints and child seats
Ignition modules
Cruise control components
Vehicle stability and ability to safely perform foreseeable avoidance maneuvers.
Design and manufacture of transmission systems including linkage and parking pawl mechanisms

Conclusion

Products liability cases usually involve the most devastating injuries. The injured person requires the services of an attorney who is both knowledgeable and experienced in the field of products liability.

The attorneys at Cheong, Denove, & Bennett have authored numerous papers and have lectured to other lawyers.

Cheong, Denove, Rowell & Bennett has the extensive resources to handle the most complex legal matters, yet is small enough to offer individualized service to our client's personal injury and wrongful death cases as a result of motor vehicle accidents. At Cheong, Denove, Rowell & Bennett we believe the more you know, the better choice you will make. Contact Us

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