Category: Product Liability

Staying ahead of product recalls is crucial in Pennsylvania to avoid potential injuries. Regularly checking the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s website, signing up for manufacturer email alerts, and registering your products are practical steps. Monitoring local news outlets and social media for recall announcements is also good. Being proactive and keeping informed can significantly reduce the risk of injury. Product liability laws protect consumers from unsafe products.  

Tips To Help You Detect A Product Defect Before It Becomes An Injury

• Stay Informed About Recalls: Regularly check for recalls of products you own or intend to buy. U.S. agencies such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) provide updates on product recalls. You can sign up for email alerts or check their websites to stay informed.
• Read Product Instructions and Warnings: Always follow the manufacturer’s instructions and warnings. They often contain important information about using the product and potential hazards to avoid safely.
• Inspect Products Regularly: Regularly inspect your products for signs of wear and tear, unusual noises, or changes in performance. Check electrical products for frayed cords, cracks, or overheating, and toys for broken parts or sharp edges.
• Research Before You Buy: Research a product’s safety record before purchasing it. Look for online reviews and complaints about the product. Websites like Consumer Reports provide unbiased product reviews and safety ratings.
• Report and Monitor Any Problems: If you notice a product malfunction, report it to the manufacturer and the CPSC. Also, monitor the product for any further issues. Keeping a record of any incidents or defects can be helpful if you need to take other action.
• Understand Pennsylvania’s Product Liability Laws: Pennsylvania has specific laws regarding product liability. Understanding these laws can help you know your rights if a defective product harms you. In Pennsylvania, manufacturers and sellers can be held liable for product defects that cause injury. Generally, product liability cases are placed into three categories: manufacturing defect, design defect, and failure to warn.
  A manufacturing defect occurs when the product does not conform to the designer’s or manufacturer’s specifications. A design defect means that the product was manufactured correctly, but the defect is inherent in the product’s design, which makes the product dangerous to consumers. Failure to warn means that a manufacturer does not adequately inform the public of the potential risks when using the product.
• Seek Expert Advice: If you are unsure about a product’s safety, consider seeking advice from a professional, such as a mechanic for automobile parts or an electrician for electrical products.
• Use Products as Intended: Use products only for their intended purposes, as the manufacturer describes. Misusing a product can lead to accidents and injuries.
• Educate Others in Your Household: Make sure that all household members know the proper use of products and the importance of reporting any issues.
• Stay Aware of Common Defects in Similar Products: By understanding common defects in similar products, you can be more vigilant about detecting potential problems in items you own.

Contact a Philadelphia Product Liability Attorney

If you suspect a product is unsafe or defective, stop using it immediately and report it to the manufacturer and the appropriate individuals or organizations. If a defective product has injured you or someone else, consult a Pennsylvania attorney experienced in product liability to discuss your legal rights and options. Contact Cooper Schall & Levy for a complimentary initial consultation.

Medical devices have come to play a vital role in U.S. health care. With advances in technology, these devices can save lives. They can also be used to greatly improve the lives of those that use them. We have come to trust and rely on medical devices and many have reaped the benefits as a result. When a medical device is defective, however, serious, even fatal, harm can occur. When this occurs, the party responsible for the defective medical device can be held liable for the harm suffered as a result of its use. While it can be a difficult determination to make, it is an essential one should you wish to pursue a claim seeking compensation for the harm you sustained as a result of the defective medical device.

Who Can Be Held Liable for Defective Medical Devices?

A claim involving a defective medical device is a type of product liability claim. In a product liability claim, pretty much anyone in the supply chain may be held liable for the product defect. Who will actually be held liable, however, will depend on the cause and nature of the defect. Sometimes, it is the designer of the device that will be held responsible. The device designer can be held responsible when the design of the product itself is defective. Even if the product was made exactly to design specifications, it would still be defective because the problem lies in the design itself. Design defects are actually not very common, but can arise if the design phase was too rushed.

In other cases, the medical device may have been designed safely but, due to a problem in manufacturing, it was made defective. When errors occur in the product’s manufacturing phase, the dangerous defect in the product was a result of that error in production. As such, the product manufacturer can be held liable for the defective medical device.

Further down the supply chain you will eventually find the distributor of the medical device. Distributors are anxious to move product. In being overly eager to sell their product, product distributors may misrepresent the product and its capabilities. They downplay or otherwise misrepresent potential risks of the product. In making false claims and misrepresentations, distributors of medical devices expose themselves to potential legal liability.

Additionally, the medical professional that made use of the device in the treatment of a patient might also be held liable for the harm caused by a medical device. Medical professionals that use such devices have a duty to warn patients about the potential dangers posed by use of the medical device. Should they fail to uphold this duty, they may be held liable for injuries that result from the use of the device.

Philadelphia Personal Injury Attorneys

Have you been injured by a medical device? You may have a product liability claim on your hands and be entitled to compensation for the harm you have suffered. Reach out to the team at Cooper, Schall & Levy for more information.  Contact us today.

Consumers rely on products they buy to be safe and free from dangerous defects. Companies that produce consumer products, in turn, have a duty to make safe products that are free from dangerous defects. Sometimes, however, a dangerously defective product makes its way into the stream of commerce and people can be seriously harmed and injured as a result. When this happens, the victims of dangerous products can seek compensation for their losses through a product liability claim.

What is a Product Liability Claim?

Pennsylvania has state product liability laws in place that can help if you are ever harmed by a defective product in the state. Through the law, you can pursue compensation for your injuries and other losses. The basis of the product liability claim can vary, but there are three main categories of product liability defects that can act as a basis for liability.

• Manufacturing defect: When a product is defective due to an error in its making, this is considered to be a manufacturing defect. The product would have been safe but for the error in its manufacturing. This kind of defect involves strict liability which means that it does not matter whether or not the manufacturer intended to injure or knew about the defect, they can still be held liable. All that needs to be shown in the claim is that the defective product caused injury.

• Design defect: Sometimes, even when a product is made precisely according to design specifications, it is still dangerous and it is due to the fact that there is a defect in the design itself. Pennsylvania courts mainly use either the “Consumer Expectations Standard” or the “Risk-Utility Standard.” The Consumer Expectations Standard focuses on whether the product was more dangerous than would be expected by a reasonable consumer. The Risk-Utility Standard asks whether the risk was expected considering the product’s use.

• Failure to warn: There is often risk associated with using a product regardless of how it was designed and manufactured. The maker of a product has a duty to warn consumers of potential dangers when the product is used as intended.

If you have been injured by a defective product, you can bring a product liability claim, but time is of the essence. Pennsylvania imposes a two-year statute of limitations on such claims. This means that you have two years from the date of injury to file a claim or you risk being barred from filing the claim altogether. There are, of course, limited exceptions to the statute of limitations. One exception, for instance, involves fraudulent concealment. If the defect was fraudulently concealed, the two-year statute of limitations clock does not begin to run until the time when a reasonable person would have discovered the defect in the product caused the injury.

Philadelphia Personal Injury Attorneys

If you have been hurt by a dangerously defective product or suspect you have been hurt by a dangerously defective product, do not delay in reaching out to the trusted personal injury team at Cooper, Schall & Levy. We can help you get properly compensated for your injuries. Contact us today.

The holidays seem to bring out the products like few other times throughout the year. Products are given as gifts. Products are received as gifts. People are buying and installing Christmas and other holiday decorations. People are using new products that they may have just received. Fortunately, manufacturers and others in the chain of product production have a duty to provide consumers with safe products. Unfortunately, this duty is not always upheld and people can be seriously injured as a result. Let us talk more about potential product liability claims that can arise during the holiday season.

Common Liability Claims After the Holidays

First, let us go over some of the basics of product liability claims. Product liability claims can arise from three different types of product defects. The first being design defects. When a product is defective in its design, it does not matter if it is manufactured exactly according to the design specifications, it will still be dangerous because the danger is inherent in the product design. 

This is different from the second kind of defect, which is manufacturing defects. When a product is dangerous due to a flaw arising from how it is made, the danger came in the form of the product not being made according to its design. With manufacturing defects, it is usually not all of an available product that is dangerous, but a bad batch of a product that was, for one reason or another, improperly made at the manufacturing level.

The third type of product defect is a failure to warn defect. If the product designer knows that there are inherent dangers in a product, even when it is perfectly designed and flawlessly manufactured, the designer has a duty to warn consumers of these dangers as well as how the product should be safely used.

Should a gift, such as a toy, have one of these kinds of defects that render it dangerous and the toy injures someone as a result, you may be able to bring a product liability claim seeking compensation for the injury suffered. This is also true of new power tools you may have received, or any dangers associated with your holiday decorations. For instance, lights to decorate houses have sometimes caused things like housefires. This could lead to a product liability claim.

Philadelphia Personal Injury Attorneys

At Cooper Schall & Levy we hope that you and yours have had a safe, injury-free holiday season. If you or a loved one has been injured by a dangerously defective product, however, we are here to provide you with zealous legal representation. Injury caused by a dangerously defective product can make more than your holiday season difficult. We are here to tirelessly pursue the full and fair compensation to which you are legally entitled. When a manufacturer, product designer, or someone else in the product distribution chain fails to uphold their duty to provide safe products and injury results, we are here for you. Contact us today.

Many of us rely on our cars, trucks, and other motor vehicles to help us safely get us from place to place. Unfortunately, defects in motor vehicles sometimes cause them to be dangerous. Far too many people find this out the hard way. Product liability cases deal with products that are dangerously flawed. One specific type of product liability cases is motor vehicle product liability. Motor vehicle product liability involves vehicles with defects that make them unsafe and cause harm to consumers. If a product does not meet ordinary and reasonable safety standards, and if a person is injured as a result, the injured party may seek compensation through a motor vehicle product liability claim.

Understanding Motor Vehicle Product Liability Cases

In recent years, you may have heard of several lawsuits involving defective motor vehicles. There have been SUVs that were prone to rolling over. A number of cars were distributed into the stream of commerce despite having tires prone to blowouts. There were also several reports of motorcycles that would shake or “wobble” when high speeds were reached. Some other common examples of motor vehicle defects that lead to product liability claims include defects in:

• Engines
• Electrical systems
• Brakes
• Tires
• Fuel systems
• Cruise control system
• Body and frame

The two most common types of motor vehicle product liability claims involve defectively manufactured vehicles or vehicle parts and vehicles that are unreasonably dangerous in design. A claim involving a defectively manufactured vehicle or vehicle part means that there was some error in the making in the car or the car part. While the vehicle or part may have been safely designed, the danger arose in a manufacturing mistake. This differs from claims that involve vehicles or vehicle parts that are unreasonably dangerous in design. With this type of claim, the vehicle or part could have been perfectly manufactured, but would still be unsafe because of a dangerous design flaw.

There are several different parties that may be held liable in a motor vehicle product liability case. In fact, all parties involved in the “chain of distribution” of the motor vehicle or the motor vehicle part may potentially carry some liability. The chain of distribution refers to the path the product, in this case, the vehicle or vehicle part, takes from the design and manufacture stages all the way to the consumer. This means that potentially liable parties may include:

• Vehicle manufacturer
• Vehicle part manufacturer
• Car dealership
• Used car dealer
• Automotive supply store

Should you wish to seek compensation pursuant to a motor vehicle product liability claim, you must be able to prove that:

• The vehicle or part had a defect rendering it unreasonably dangerous;
• The vehicle defect was the cause of injury;
• The vehicle was being used in a reasonable way at the time the injury occurred; and
• The vehicle was in the substantially same condition it was when it was sold.

Pennsylvania Personal Injury Attorneys

Defects in motor vehicles or motor vehicle parts can lead to devastating injuries. If you have been injured due to a defective motor vehicle, talk to the trusted attorneys at Cooper Schall & Levy to discuss your legal options. Contact us today.

Dangerous product defects can cause devastating injuries to consumers. If you have been injured in such a way, you may be wondering what happens next. You may have legal recourse and seek compensation for your injuries through a product liability claim. There are, however, certain things you will need to prove to make a successful claim.

How to Prove a Product Liability Case

In order to substantiate a product liability claim, you will need to prove several things.

• First, you will need to prove that you were injured or suffered losses. If there is no physical injury or any kind of monetary loss, then there are no damages. If there are no damages, there is no case.
• Second, you will need to prove that the product causing your injury or loss was, in fact, defective. There are several types of product defects that you may claim. There may have been a defect in the design of the product. This means that, even if the product was perfectly manufactured according to the design, it still would have been defective. There may also have been a manufacturing defect you are claiming. This means that the product was defective in the way that it was produced or manufactured. Usually in this type of case, the product design was okay, but something went wrong in the actual making of the product. Another type of product defect is a warning defect, which exists when a product has inadequate warning labels or instructions.
• Third, you must show that the product defect caused your injury. A product liability claim is not simply one where a person was injured when using a defective product. In this type of claim, the defect of the product must have been the direct cause of the injury or loss sustained.
• Fourth, you must be able to prove that you were using the product as it was intended. You do not need to use the product according to the exact specifications of the manufacturer, but you do need to show that you were at least using the product in a way the manufacturer could reasonably expect an ordinary consumer to use it.

Anything else that you may need to prove to substantiate your product liability claim will depend on other things like what theory you are bringing the claim under. If you are bringing the claim under a theory of negligence or a breach of warranty, you must prove that the product seller or manufacturer owed a duty to provide a safe product to consumers. In a breach of warranty case, you would be asserting that the manufacturer violated a warranty they provided to the consumer. You will need to prove that such a warranty of the product was provided, but the warranty was violated and that violation caused injury. Lastly, you may seek to bring a product liability claim under a theory of strict liability. Under strict liability, negligence does not need to be proven. It is enough to show that the injury was directly caused by a defect in a product.

Product Liability Attorneys

As consumers, we depend on companies to produce products that are safe for our use. If you have been injured by a defective product, Cooper Schall & Levy will fight to hold the necessary parties responsible. We will fight to get you the compensation you deserve. Contact us today.