Negligence Claims

Negligence Claims in the United States

Typical Negligence Claims: Design Defects and Inadequate Warnings

Negligence theory in products liability (see more here) is most useful to analyze in two following types of legal issues: defective design and defective warnings.

Design Defects

Manufacturers can be, and often are, held liable for injuries caused by products that were defectively designed. The question is whether the designer used reasonable care in designing a product reasonably safe for its foreseeable use. The concern over reasonableness and standards of care are elements of negligence theory.

Defective-design cases can pose severe problems for manufacturing and safety engineers. More safety means more cost. Designs altered to improve safety may impair functionality and make the product less desirable to consumers. At what point safety comes into reasonable balance with performance, cost, and desirability … is impossible to forecast accurately, though some factors can be taken into account. For example, if other manufacturers are marketing comparable products whose design are intrinsically safer, the less-safe products are likely to lose a test of reasonableness in court. (1)

Warning Defects

We noted that a product may be defective if the manufacturer failed to warn the user of potential dangers. Whether a warning should have been affixed is often a question of what is reasonably foreseeable, and the failure to affix a warning will be treated as negligence. The manufacturer of a weed killer with poisonous ingredients is certainly acting negligently when it fails to warn the consumer that the contents are potentially lethal.

The law governing the necessity to warn and the adequacy of warnings is complex. What is reasonable turns on the degree to which a product is likely to be misused and, as the disturbing Laaperi case … illustrates, whether the hazard is obvious. (2)

Resources

Notes

  1. “Business and the Legal Environment”, by Don Mayer, Daniel M. Warner and George J. Siedel.
  2. Id.

See Also


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