Sometimes products are not always as safe and reliable as their companies say they are. The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission reported that defective or incorrectly labeled products cause roughly 29.5 million injuries each year.
Taking on insurance companies, dealing with legal challenges, and healing from your injuries could be a lot of pressure to deal with at once for anybody on their own. Gaining legal support from a local personal injury attorney could help lessen your stress. A knowledgeable and experienced Florence defective product lawyer could examine your situation, and help guide you through your options for recovery moving forward.
Product Liability Claims in General
Claims based on the theory of product liability are similar to other personal injury cases but differ in that defendants could be held strictly liable in defective product liability cases. Under strict liability, plaintiffs are not required to show that a defendant breached their duty of care. As product manufacturers and sellers, their duty of care is inherently imposed on them already. Generally, a plaintiff is required to prove the following elements to support a defective product liability claim:
- The plaintiff was injured or suffered a loss
- The product was defective
- The defect caused the plaintiff’s injury
- The plaintiff was using the product as intended
The two elements of injury and causation are also common in personal injury cases based on theories of negligence. In negligence claims, the plaintiff must show that the defendant’s conduct caused their injuries, whereas in defective product cases, defective product victims in Florence must show that a defective product caused their injuries.
Types of Product Defects
There are three main categories that defective product plaintiffs in Florence might use to support their product liability claim: design defects, manufacturing defects, and marketing defects. Plaintiffs may find themselves in a situation where more than one of the defects took place and caused their injuries.
Design Defects
To prove that a product had a design defect which caused injury or loss, the product’s design must have been inherently dangerous or defective. The defective design must apply to all of the products with the same design, not just one product that is manufactured.
Manufacturing Defects
If a manufacturing defect caused the injury, plaintiffs are required to show that their injury resulted from form an error that occurred during the process of producing the product. In this case, the product that caused the injury was not defective by design and was the only one in the line of products that had the manufactured defect that caused injury.
Marketing Defects – Failure to Warn
The failure to provide adequate warning or instructions may also serve as grounds to bring a defective product liability claim. Products that fail to provide proper labeling or warning of special precautions that a consumer would not be obvious to a user would be liable for failure to warn.
Seeking Compensation for Defective Products in Florence
Those injured by defective products in Florence may file a lawsuit to recover compensation for their personal injuries. South Carolina imposes a statute of limitation, or time limit, that gives plaintiffs a certain window of time to file their claim, and they lose their right to sue after the time limit runs out.
Under South Carolina Code §15-3-530, plaintiffs may file their lawsuit within three years of the date that the cause of action accrues. The cause of action would likely begin to “accrue” on the date that the defective product causes injury.
Consult a Florence Defective Products Attorney Today
The help and support of a dedicated legal professional could not be overstated. When dealing with potentially complex issues and procedures such as product liability, the insight of a Florence defective product lawyer could play a key role in overcoming your legal obstacles to just compensation. An attorney could review your case and help explain what the pathway to legal recovery may look like for you. To learn more about your options, call now for a consultation.
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