Product Injury Lawsuit

What is a Products Liability Lawsuit in North Carolina?

Product liability law is designed to protect consumers from defective or dangerous products. People in North Carolina injured by a defective product may be able to file a lawsuit with an Asheville product liability attorney.

According to North Carolina law, a product liability lawsuit includes any case brought for or on account of personal injury, death or property damage caused by or resulting from the manufacture, construction, design, formulation, development of standards, preparation, processing, assembly, testing, listing, certifying, warning, instruction, marketing, selling, advertising, packaging or labeling of any product.

We understand the importance of winning your case, and we will do everything in our power to help you get the compensation you deserve. Contact our product liability lawyers in Asheville today at 828-333-5996

Our Product Liability Attorney Answers FAQs about Product Liability Lawsuits

What are the types of product liability claims?

A person can bring a product injury lawsuit for the following types of claims:

• Negligence
• Misrepresentation
• Express Warranty
• Implied Warranty of Merchantability
• Strict Liability in Tort
• Manufacturing Defect
• Design Defect
• Warning Defect
• Crashworthiness

When you hire Asheville product liability lawyer Lakota Denton, you can be confident that you are hiring a dedicated professional who will fight for you every step of the way. Contact Attorney Denton today at 828-333-5996.

Why Hire an Asheville Product Liability Attorney?

A Successful Outcome Begins with a Successful Trial Lawyer

At Lakota R. Denton, PA, we believe that our experience and knowledge as trial lawyers sets us apart in the world of product liability law. Not all personal injury attorneys understand how to effectively represent clients in a product liability lawsuit.

1. Product Liability Case Experience

Our team of experienced Asheville product liability trial attorneys has handled many product liability lawsuits, and we have the resources to investigate your claim thoroughly and build a strong case on your behalf.

A product injury lawsuit has many moving parts, and it requires the testimony of a qualified expert witness to win your case. If a judge rejects the expert witness selected by your attorney, your case may be dismissed. Moreover, the defense attorneys on the other side will vigorously fight to prove that their client’s product is safe or they will try to prove that you misused their product somehow.

We are not afraid to take the fight to them and we know how to present a persuasive case for a positive outcome. We will try your case in front of a jury if necessary. We would not have the results of numerous successful cases if we were “shrinking violets” in the courtroom.  We will put our experience to work for you.

2. We Care About Our Clients

In addition to experience and knowledge, when it comes to finding the right product liability lawyers, you want to make sure that you find a team who truly cares about their clients. We understand how frustrating and overwhelming it can be to deal with a product liability issue. Defective medical devices can require multiple surgeries to remove and repair the damage, not to mention the pain and suffering and, in some cases, the irreparable harm that bad medical devices and other defective products cause.

When you have been injured by a defective product, the last thing you want to do is deal with paperwork and legal red tape. We believe that clear and transparent communication is essential to ensure that our clients have peace of mind and can focus on what’s important: getting their lives and their health back on track. We value the trust that our clients have placed in us.

3. Happy Lawyers = Happy Clients

90% of success comes down to being excited about what you do. We have been successful because we love protecting the rights of people who have been injured by defective products. Mny of our past and present clients have kindly left testimonials and reviews of how we’ve helped them get through some pretty tough life situations.

We love our community, and one of the ways we show it is by offering a scholarship to future attorneys entering college who also want to give back to their communities when they become lawyers.

We believe that everyone deserves access to high-quality legal representation, and we are committed to providing that representation. It’s important to have an experienced and aggressive advocate on your side, and we know that the cost of hiring a lawyer can be prohibitive for many people. That’s why we work on a contingency basis, which means that you won’t have to pay us unless we win your case.

We also offer free consultations so that you can learn more about your legal rights and options without any obligation. Contact us today at 828-333-5996 to schedule a free consultation. We look forward to speaking with you about your product liability case.

We will be there for you every step of the way. Contact a compassionate and knowledgeable Asheville product liability attorney today at 828-333-5996.

The Science and The Law of Winning a Products Liability Lawsuit in Asheville

What a Jury Must Determine for You to Win Your Product Liability Lawsuit

Strict Liability: An Essential Protection for Consumers

In the modern marketplace, the average consumer is confronted with an overwhelming number of choices. With so many products available, it can be difficult to know which ones are safe and which ones are not. This problem is compounded by the fact that many manufacturers use marketing strategies that make their products seem more trustworthy than they may be. For these reasons, it is important to have a legal framework in place that protects consumers from dangerous products.

In a strict liability system, a manufacturer is held responsible for any injuries caused by a product that they have placed on the market, even if there was no negligence on their part. This system is based on the principle that people who are injured should not have to bear the brunt of the consequences and that the costs of an injury should be distributed among the public as a cost of doing business. This system provides incentives for manufacturers to take measures to prevent injuries, and it ensures that people who are injured receive compensation for their losses. Injured parties are also more likely to receive prompt and fair compensation under a strict liability system than they would under a negligence-based system.

When we win a case based on strict liability, it is because the product was so dangerous that the manufacturer is “strictly liable” for the injuries their product caused, and we do not need to prove the elements of negligence to win the case.

Negligence: Unreasonable Conduct to Consumers

Product liability suits based on negligence are governed by North Carolina state law, rather than federal law. To win in a North Carolina court based on negligence, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant seller or manufacturer of a product owed a duty of care to the plaintiff, that the defendant breached that duty of care by failing to remove a reasonably foreseeable risk of harm or injury with its product, and that the breach resulted in injury to the plaintiff.

In North Carolina, when a product liability lawsuit is based on negligence, the plaintiff alleges one or more of the following:

1. Was the defendant a seller or manufacturer? 

A manufacturer is a person or entity who designs, assembles, fabricates, produces, constructs or otherwise prepares a product or a component part of a product prior to its sale to a user or consumer.

A seller is any individual or entity engaged in the business of selling a product, whether such sale is for resale or for use or for consumption. A seller also includes a retailer, wholesaler, distributor, or lessor engaged in the business of leasing.

2. Manufacturing defect – Implied warranty of merchantability 

In a product liability action based on tort or warrant, a product defect may be inferred from evidence of the product’s malfunction if there is evidence the product had been put to its ordinary use. In North Carolina, plaintiffs are not required to prove a specific defect. Instead, plaintiffs can prove a defect by producing adequate circumstantial evidence of a defect.

A breach of the implied warranty of merchantability occurs if the product or good  . . .

• Is not fit for the ordinary purposes for which such merchandise is used
• Does not run of even kind, quality, and quantity within each unit and among units involved within the variations permitted
• Is not adequately contained, packaged, and labeled
• Does not conform to the promises or representations of fact made on the container or label, if any.

3. Warning defect

Failure to Warn: Did the defendant unreasonably fail to provide an adequate warning or instruction with the product, proximately causing the plaintiff’s injury, death, or damage?

Inadequate Warning: Was the defendant’s failure to provide an adequate warning or instruction unreasonable? Failure to provide an adequate warning or instruction is unreasonable if a reasonable and prudent manufacturer or seller, acting under the same or similar circumstances, would have provided an adequate warning or instruction.

After the product left the control of the defendant, did the defendant become aware of or, in the exercise of ordinary care should they have known, that the product posed a substantial risk of harm to a reasonably foreseeable user or consumer and failed to take reasonable steps to give adequate warning or instruction or to take other reasonable action under the circumstances?

4. Defective design 

Did the defendant act unreasonably in designing or formulating the product, proximately causing the plaintiff’s injury, death, or damage?

To find that at the time of manufacture the defendant acted unreasonably, a judge or jury needs to answer the following:

• To weigh the nature and magnitude of the risks of harm associated with the design or formulation in light of the intended and reasonably foreseeable uses, modifications, or alterations of the product;
• The likely awareness of users of the product of those risks of harm, whether based on warnings, general knowledge, or otherwise;
• The utility of the product, including the performance, safety, and other advantages associated with the design or formulation;
• The technical, economic, and practical feasibility of using an alternative design or formulation at the time of manufacture;
• The nature and magnitude of any foreseeable risks associated with the alternative design or formulation;
• The extent to which the labeling for a prescription or a non-prescription drug approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conformed to any applicable government or private standard that was in effect when the product left the control of the defendant.

If the risks outweigh the utility of the product, it may be found to be defective. This is known as the Risk-Utility Test and it is used in North Carolina and other states to determine whether or not the benefit of having a product in the marketplace outweighs the risk of harm to consumers.

Contact Our Asheville Product Injury Lawyer Today

We are experienced and professional negotiators who believe that our clients should be compensated for any injuries caused by defective products. Contact us at 828-333-5996 today for a free consultation.

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