Product Liability -

Item Name

Product Liability

The claims most commonly associated with product liability are negligence, strict liability, breach of warranty, and various consumer protection .

  • Manufacturing defects are those that occur in the manufacturing process and usually involve poor-quality materials or shoddy workmanship.
  • Design defects occur where the product design is inherently dangerous or useless (and hence defective) no matter how carefully manufactured; this may be demonstrated either by showing that the product fails to satisfy ordinary consumer expectations as to what constitutes a safe product, or that the risks of the product outweigh its benefits.
  • Failure-to-warn defects arise in products that carry inherent nonobvious dangers which could be mitigated through adequate warnings to the user, and these dangers are present regardless of how well the product is manufactured and designed for its intended purpose.
  • Breach of warranty -Warranties are statements by a manufacturer or seller concerning a product during a commercial transaction. Warranty claims commonly require privity between the injured party and the manufacturer or seller; in plain English, this means they must be dealing with each other directly. Breach of warranty-based product liability claims usually focus on one of three types: (1) breach of an express warranty, (2) breach of an implied warranty of merchantability, and (3) breach of an implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose.
  • Negligence- A basic negligence claim consists of proof of: a duty owed, a breach of that duty, the breach was the cause in fact of the plaintiff’s injury (actual cause), the breach proximately caused the plaintiff’s injury, and the plaintiff suffered actual quantifiable injury (damages).Over time, negligence concepts have arisen to deal with certain specific situations, including negligence per se (using a manufacturer’s violation of a law or regulation, in place of proof of a duty and a breach) and res ipsa loquitur (an inference of negligence under certain conditions).
  • Strict liability: Rather than focus on the behaviour of the manufacturer (as in negligence), strict liability claims focus on the product itself. Under strict liability, the manufacturer is liable if the product is defective, even if the manufacturer was not negligent in making that product defective.

The difficulty with negligence is that it still requires the plaintiff to prove that the defendant’s conduct fell below the relevant standard of care. However, if an entire industry tacitly settles on a somewhat careless standard of conduct (that is, as analysed from the perspective of a layperson), then the plaintiff may not be able to recover even though he or she is severely injured, because although the defendant’s conduct caused his or her injuries, such conduct was not negligent in the legal sense (if everyone within the trade would inevitably testify that the defendant’s conduct conformed to that of a reasonable tradeperson in such circumstances). As a practical matter, with the increasing complexity of products, injuries, and medical care (which made many formerly fatal injuries survivable), it is quite a difficult and expensive task to find and retain good expert witnesses who can establish the standard of care, breach, and causation.

We cover the following types of Product Liability

  • Manufacturing
  • Wholesalers Products
  • E-cigarettes

Policy Benefits

A Packages tailored to your individual needs a Cover Available over the phone a Option to add Public & Employers Liability

A Payment Plan (subject to status, deposit required – terms & conditions available on request)

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