Products Liability Attorney in Flushing, Queens, NY

The Queens NY Personal Injury Law Firm of The Popick Law Firm PC will represent you and protect your rights in your product liability case.

Under a products liability cause of action, the manufacturers and sellers of the defective product are liable to the injured consumer. Negligence is not relevant to products liability cause of action because negligence involves an element of unreasonable conduct. Under a products theory the manufacturer or seller is strictly liable for building or selling a defective product.

Product defects fall into three categories:
 

• Design defects - Inherent flaws that make a product dangerous.
• Manufacturing defects - Flaws that result from defective parts or manufacturing errors.
• Marketing Defects - Inadequate warnings and instructions, or the willful misrepresentation of how a product should be used.

If someone was injured due to a design defect the claim is that the product worked as it was designed to do but that the design was negligent. Present in a product from the beginning, even before it is manufactured, in that something in the design of the product is inherently unsafe. For example, a car roof is designed and manufactured according to the design but then in an accident the car rolls over and the roof does not support the weight of the car, injuring the occupants. In a manufacturing defect case, the injured person has a claim if the product did not work as it was designed. For example, a chair was designed and built to support a weight of 200 pounds. But someone weighing 150 pounds sits on the chair and it breaks because the wooden legs were not strong enough to support the weight due to any number of variables such as using rotten wood or a machine building the legs was not working properly and cut off too much wood. Then the manufacturer and seller is strictly liable to the injured party.

In a marketing defect case, the manufacturer or seller has a responsibility to adequately warn consumers of dangers it knows or should know about. For example, a manufacturer builds a chair that looks like a stepladder but anytime someone stands on it, perhaps to change a light bulb, the chair tips over. The manufacturer or seller may be strictly liable to the consumer because the manufacturer should have known that people would use the chairs to stand on to change light bulbs therefore it should put a warning on the chair or its packaging in a place where it reasonably anticipated that it should be seen that warns users not to stand on it.

Food that is sold to the public that causes injury due to bacteria such as e coli, toxins or objects within the food is also considered a products liability case because food is a product and the manufacturer and seller are strictly liable for the defective food.

If you've been a victim of a product liability issue, call the Personal Injury Law Firm of The Popick Law Firm PC today at (718) 321-7460.