Winning a Product Liability Lawsuit – It’s all in the timing
Incidents in which people who suffer injury or even death as the result of a design flaw or other form of defect in a product are usually followed in most countries by lawsuits seeking financial redress from the manufacturer of that product.
These are normally defined as product liability suits and they can lead to very substantial compensation payments.
Reputable manufacturers will always put new products through a rigorous testing process to highlight any weaknesses that may lead to harm. In most countries,
there are official government bodies which have to approve certain types of product before they are allowed to come on to the market in the first place.
Whenever a case comes to court, the manufacturer being sued has to show that it took every precaution before launching the product on to the market using technology and knowledge available at the time. A classic example might be something like asbestos which is now known to cause asbestosis, a potentially fatal lung disease caused by the asbestos fibres.
The first person to die from prolonged exposure to the material was a British factory worker, Nellie Kershaw, in 1924. Her employers, Turner Brothers Asbestos, were not found to be liable for her death on the grounds that asbestosis did not exist as a medical condition and was not officially recognised at the time. Poor Nellie’s legacy was a parliamentary enquiry by the British Government leading to the Asbestos Industry Regulations which came into effect in 1932.
More recently, a similar case occurred in California where a man died 8 years ago having been “ shot “ several times by a taser gun while resisting arrest. Pathologists determined that the heart attack death of Michael Robert Rosa was linked to metabolic acidosis after Rosa was tased multiple times by officers in the City of Del Rey Oaks.
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld previous judgements in favour of Taser International on the grounds that the company had no duty, at the time of the incident eight years ago, to warn police departments that repeated use of the company’s M26 “electronic control device” could cause metabolic acidosis. Research cited by the plaintiffs, he said, did not relate to the defendant’s products, was not publicly available, or was merely speculative, the judge said.
It seems that anyone wanting to launch a successful product liability suit really needs to have time on their side. Of course, in the case of the hapless Nellie, it was all academic anyway.
