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Product liability law assigns responsibility for injury caused by a product to the manufacturer, supplier, designer or retailer. Claims can be based on design defects, manufacturing defects, or failure to report. Liability can be based on negligence or strict liability, depending on jurisdiction. Design defects are inherent in the product’s design, while manufacturing defects are unplanned. Failure to report cases involve products that require warning labels to inform consumers of potential danger.
Product liability falls within the scope of the Civil Liability Act. Liability law is the area of law that assigns liability for injury, both physical and emotional, to a victim. Product liability claims fall into one of three categories: design defects, manufacturing defects, and failure to report claims.
When a victim is injured by a product, the manufacturer, supplier, designer or retailer can potentially be held liable under product liability law. In some jurisdictions, the defendant must be found negligent in order for the victim to recover compensation. In other jurisdictions, such as many European countries, strict liability may be used. Negligence requires that the plaintiff, or victim, prove that the defendant breached the duty of care it owed to the plaintiff and that the breach of duty caused the injuries. Under strict liability, the plaintiff only needs to prove that the defendant caused the injuries.
A product liability lawsuit based on a design defect requires the plaintiff to prove that the basic design of the product was defective. In other words, the problem was inherent in the design itself, making the product unsafe regardless of any safety efforts undertaken during production. If, for example, brakes designed for use in a passenger car fail at speeds above 80 miles per hour (128.7 km/h), then it would be a design flaw.
A manufacturing defect differs from a design defect in that the product, when manufactured according to the design, is not defective. Only part of the product causes injury in a product liability lawsuit for manufacturing defect. In the brake example, there would be a manufacturing defect if something happened during the manufacturing process that caused some brakes to fail at high speeds. One way to look at the difference between design and manufacturing defects is to consider design defects as planned defects while manufacturing defects are unplanned defects.
Failure to report product liability cases are based on products that are inherently dangerous and require sufficient warning to alert consumers to the possibility of harm. Some products cannot be designed to eliminate all potential damage. Cleaning products, for example, in many cases need to contain caustic chemicals to work as intended. However, if a consumer inhales, swallows or comes into contact with the chemicals, it can cause serious injury. Appropriate warnings are therefore necessary to inform consumers of the possible danger; a company that does not include this warning could be liable for injuries caused by the product.
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