What Is Product Liability?

Product liability is the area of the law that holds companies with defective, improperly designed, or improperly manufactured items that cause harm responsible for their actions. To have a valid product liability case, you must be able to prove that there was some design or manufacturing defect that caused your actual injury with measurable harm. You must be prepared to present substantial evidence, and that usually includes expert witness testimony to prove the claim.

There are three main ways a product can be defective:

1. Defective manufacturing of the product. Food recalls often fall under this umbrella. When a mistake is made during the manufacture of a product, such as E.coli contamination while lettuce is being packaged for distribution, the manufacturer is likely to blame for the defect and ensuing injuries.
   
   
2. Defective design of the product. Poor design with unplanned or unexpected flaws usually hits hardest in the automotive or medical device industry because their products have a high-risk factor; however, most types of product liability cases come from defective design.
   
   
3. Lack of or improper warnings or instructions for use of the product. This is most apparent with pharmaceutical products but can include any item for which the manufacturer or seller didn’t give enough instruction for consumers to use it as intended (or warn them how NOT to use it). The famous McDonald’s “hot coffee” case would fall under this defect.