Asheville Product Injury Lawyer

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.