Product Liability or Products’ Liability is a vast encompassing area of tort law dealing with unreasonably dangerous products. These types of cases can run in conjunction with negligence actions and warranty claims.

Products that explode, vies a vie, tires, hot kettles, pool equipment, canisters, pressure cookers, and other items are big reasons for product liability cases. Products liability cases usually require experts to help prove the case.

Other products’ cases involve issues with defect design. For example, a tire design issue that causes premature tread separation, or a baby's car seat that doesn't provide complete care, or a poorly designed door that slams shut, or a bad weld design on a steel structure that cracks. Poorly designed toasters can lead to fires and poorly designed cars can lead to accidents. These devices can cause serious injury, and poorly engineered products are very dangerous. The problems with defectively designed apparatuses are the quantity in the public domain. In contrast to a mis-manufactured product as described below, thousands if not all of the products will have the same defect leading to multiple liability issues and multiple plaintiffs.

Products liability cases are strict liability cases. These are cases where the burden of proof is shifted somewhat. Here, a client must prove the product was merely manufactured unreasonably dangerous.

Cases of products where there is a failure to warn the consumer of a known hazard are a big issue in Las Vegas. Warning labels, signs and text are important if the consumer is to avoid serious injury. Lawn mowers, engines, motors, fans and most power equipment must have sufficient and reasonable warnings on parts that may emit danger. Sharp objects such as knives, scissors, and swords do not necessarily need such warnings as they are so obvious, but hidden dangers in electrical products may cause heart attacks—Don’t put the hair dryers near water, and certainly don’t put bleach and ammonia together as the reaction is poisonous. Bright yellow, red, or orange labels are important for the consumer to recognize a potentially lethal or deadly saw blade. Failure to warn customers of the harm, leads to surprise safety issues. “Keep away from propellers” may seem obvious to the pilot, but for a passenger who can’t see the spinning blades a WARNING should be issued.

The most common in products cases is the mis-manufactured product - The product that is simply made incorrectly. These cases involve issues with bad parts, irregular moldings, or incorrect assemblages. Numerous things can go wrong on an assembly line, and either human error or computer program can cause horrendous results. From canned soup and drugs, to ropes and engines, all things can be mis-manufactured. If a chocolate chip cookie contains staples or foreign objects it is mis-manufactured. Just the same, a motorcycle's handlebars should be bolted securely. Call Benson & Bingham today if you have suffered an injury due to a mis-manufactured product, defectively designed product or a product that does not contain proper warnings