Are you thinking about hiring a Las Vegas defective product lawyer to help with a personal injury claim? If so, there are few things you should know about Henness & Haight:

• We’ve been around for over two decades. Learn about our Firm’s mission and history.
• We will meet with you and review your case free of charge. Our knowledgeable and friendly staff will listen closely to the details of your case and answer all of your questions to the best of our ability.
• You don’t pay us anything up-front or out of pocket. We work on a contingency fee basis. This means that you only pay us if we recover money for you.
• We have hundreds of positive reviews. We invite you to check what people say about us on Google, Facebook, Yelp, and Lawyers.com and to read testimonials from our clients.

Types of Product Liability Claims

Defects in consumer products can occur at almost any stage of their development, including production, marketing, and design. This is because companies that choose to design and manufacture products must use reasonable care in doing so throughout the entire process from design to delivery. Regardless of when the defect actually occurred, an injured party generally has to file his or her claim under one of three different legal theories: negligence, breach of warranty, or strict liability.

Negligence

Plaintiffs who file their defective product claims based on a party’s negligence must be able to demonstrate that although a company had a duty to use reasonable care when designing, manufacturing, packaging, or handling a product, it failed to do so, which resulted in the plaintiff’s injury. Claims based on allegations of negligence usually require testimony from experts who can specifically point to the company’s deviation from the standard of care used in a certain industry. This could include negligent acts such as using cheap or low quality materials, using unskilled or unqualified workers, or failing to conduct proper safety testing.

Breach of Warranty

Demonstrating that a company was negligent can be difficult and require years of litigation, so many injured consumers choose to file their defective product suits as breach of warranty claims. This theory requires proof that the product in question didn’t meet the consumer’s expectations, or did not perform as the manufacturer promised. There are two main types of warranties that come with most consumer products, including:

• Express warranties, which are explicit promises that a product will work a certain way and can take the form of a guarantee on a label, or a promise made during an advertisement or on the product’s packaging; and
• Implied warranties, which although not written or stated outright, are implied promises that a product will work for its obviously intended purpose.

Breach of warranty claims are often accompanied by allegations of fraud or misrepresentation, especially if a plaintiff’s suit involves claims of overstated advertising, or the use of false or misleading labels that misrepresented material facts about a product.

Strict Liability

Fortunately for plaintiffs, many of the product liability claims that arise in Nevada fall under the category of strict liability, which means that consumers are not required to provide evidence that a manufacturer was negligent or somehow breached its warranty in order to recover damages. Although plaintiffs who file strict liability claims do not have to provide evidence that a manufacturer, distributor, or seller should have been more careful or that it made errors in its design, they are required to establish that:

• A product had a design, manufacturing, or warning label defect that made it unreasonably dangerous to users;
• The defect existed at the time that the product in question left the defendant’s control;
• The product was used in a way that was foreseeable to the defendant; and
• The product’s defect caused them to suffer an injury.

Strict liability claims are filed most often when a person is injured by a product that was unreasonably dangerous due to an error in the manufacturing process. However, this type of claim can usually be filed any time a dangerous product failed to perform in the manner expected based on its intended function and nature.

Types of Product Defects

There are three main types of defects for which injured consumers can recover damages, including: design defects, manufacturing defects, and warning label defects. Design flaws involve defects in how a product was designed or planned, which means that every product, not just those that depart from a design, will be defective. Lawsuits against manufacturers who made a defectively designed product usually fall under the umbrella of strict liability, which says that companies can be held liable merely for putting a dangerous product on the market.

Manufacturing defects, on the other hand, describe flaws that were not the result of a poor design, but can be linked to a fault in production that rendered them hazardous to users. It is not uncommon for a manufacturing defect to result in only a small grouping of defective products that were manufactured with a dangerous defect. In these cases, most plaintiffs file claims based on negligence, as they can point to the safe version of the products as evidence of a failure to use reasonable care.

Finally, a manufacturer could be held liable for injuries caused by a product that came with insufficient or inadequate labels that failed to notify users of the hazards of using the product. Even if a product was perfectly designed and produced, it must still come with warnings of potential harm to plaintiffs, so failing to include proper instructions or labeling is often enough to hold an at-fault manufacturer or distributor liable for damages.

Experienced Las Vegas Product Liability Attorneys

For help with your own product liability claim, please contact the dedicated defective products attorneys at Henness & Haight today by calling (702) 805-HELP.

Contact Our Las Vegas Product Liability Lawyers

At Henness & Haight, we believe that negligent manufacturers who place the safety of innocent consumers should be held accountable for their actions. That is why we are dedicated to fighting to protect the rights of the injured.

If you believe you have been injured or lost a loved one because of a defective product, do not hesitate to contact our Las Vegas product liability lawyers for a free review of your claim. We work on a contingency fee basis and do not get paid unless your case is successful.