Product Liability Facts

Product Liability Law

Controls the private litigation of product accidents which provides compensation to the injured party. Product Liability law involves the tort law of negligence or strict liability and the contract law of sales or warranty. The liability may arise as a result of a defect in a design or manufacturing, improper service, breach of warranty, or negligence in marketing due to improper directions, warnings or advertisings.

Proving a design defect is difficult. Some of factors helps to assess that. They are:

• The utility of the product
• The feasibility and approximate cost of safety improvements
• The public’s common knowledge of the product’s inherent danger
• The frequency and severity of injuries
• The adequacy of instructions and warnings
• The environment where the product was used
• The consumer’s reasonable care in using the product
• The age and the condition of the product

Duty of Care

• It must have been reasonably foreseeable that the plaintiff could have been injured by the defendant’s conduct.
• A plaintiff is foreseeable if he was in the of danger created by the defendant.
• There must not be any compelling policy reasons for refusing to impose a duty of care.

Standard of Care

In order to be held liable for negligence the conduct of the defendant must fall below a standard of care. The standard of care that the defendant must exercise towards the plaintiff is that of a reasonable person in the same or similar circumstances. The reasonable person test is an objective test. Professionals such as doctors, surgeons, dentists, accountants, engineers and lawyers are held to a higher standard of care knownas a specialized standard of care. This is the standard of a reasonable professional with that type of specialized training.

Other factors to consider in determining whether the defendant breached the standard of care include:

• Violation of a statute creates a arguable presumption of negligence
• Custom in the community
• The emergency doctrine. This holds the defendant to lower standard of care because an emergency required him to act in the manner that he did in order to avoid a greater harm from occurring.

Proof and the Expert Witness

Proof that the product was defective at the time of manufacture is frequently difficult, because the product may entirely or partly destroyed by the accident. Expert testimony may be needed to as certain when the defect occurred. This testimony usually will follow the line of reasoning that a microscopic flaw, which was present during the manufacturing operation, caused the product to fail at a future date.

Expert witnesses are engaged by both sides of the litigation to prove their arguments. The first requirement of an expert is to be technically competent in the area of testimony. Technical competency can be substantiated by impressive credentials such as education, registration and technical publications.

The most important requirement of an acceptable technical witness is the ability to communicate with the judge and the jury. The technical expert must be able to explain and teach the technical aspects of the case to nontechnical people. Testimony concerning science, product design and quality control must be given in a simple and truthful manner.