Articles Posted in Defective Products

Every eight minutes, a young baby under the age of three is involved in an accident as a result of an issue with a baby product, according to Scientific American. Each year, an estimated 66,000 kids get hurt due to some type of accident that occurs while a baby product is being used. This is a huge number of infants who may need expensive medical care and who could suffer permanent damage or even be killed as a result of injuries sustained in an accident.

Parents need to be aware of what the risks are, and also of how the law protects them and their children. If the accident which occurs is caused by a problem with the baby product, parents have legal options. A parent could pursue a claim on behalf of a child who was injured due to a defective baby product. This lawsuit could make it possible for parents to get the money they need to provide the best care for an injured baby. An Atlanta defective product lawyer can help parents to determine if they might have a case and can fight for parents to get full compensation if their son or daughter was hurt due to a product defect.

Which Baby Products Caused the Most Atlanta Injuries?

During the holiday season, many new items come into people’s homes. From toys under the tree to holiday decorations, you may be buying lots of new stuff. Unfortunately, as you bring items into your home, you take the risk that those items could be dangerous or have a defect that causes harm.

When a product turns out to be dangerous, victims who are hurt by its use can pursue a claim for damages. An Atlanta defective products lawyer can provide assistance in determining if you have a product liability claim based on an injury resulting from a product defect.

If you do, our legal team can help you to pursue a case to get compensation for losses from the product manufacturer and others who are accountable for getting the dangerous product into your hands.

In 2015, there were 68 different products which were sold for use by children and which subsequently had to be recalled after being released. The Sun Times reports this is a relatively low number of product recalls, and that recall rates are down because of improved regulations and better safety efforts. While this may be fewer recalled products than in the past, the 68 products which were recalled still represented 5.5 million products which were unsafe and which were sold for children to use.

When a product is dangerous, hopefully it is taken off the shelves before anyone gets sick or injured. Unfortunately, this often does not happen. In fact, many recalled products marketed for both children and adults are still in use to this day despite the dangers.

Victims who are hurt by a product which is dangerous and which has been subject to a recall should consult with an Atlanta product liability lawyer for help pursuing a damage claim.

Our Atlanta product liability attorneys know that companies often try to get away with having potentially dangerous products on the market, and when they are caught because someone gets seriously injured and sues, they want to “hide the balland get out of it.

That is why it is important to get legal help as soon as possible if you are hurt by a product.

Our Georgia products liability lawyers understand the many avenues of liability that are formed in the making of a product, because everyone in the chain of production of that product owes a duty of care to the end purchaser. There is also liability from a failure to warn of a dangerous aspect or potential harm that is not immediately apparent to the user of the product.

When, as consumers, we count on products to work as they are supposed to, and they do not and cause harmful consequences, there is recourse in product liability law . Recent posts about this have involved medical products, but motor vehicles have the potential to be dangerous if there is something wrong, as well. A recent news story has highlighted the danger of a product for safety when driving that can be replaced with a fake, causing serious injuries or death in car accidents.

Airbags in cars have saved lives and lessened the severity of injuries in car accidents. However, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has issued a warning about counterfeit airbags. NHTSA says the counterfeit airbags are being used as replacements for the proper product. So far they are not aware of any injuries or deaths relating to these fakes, but it is still dangerous to have them out there with the potential for injury or death. These fake airbags look nearly identical to the real ones, including the insignia and branding of major automakers, but NHTSA tested one and it showed consistent malfunctioning ranging from non-deployment of the airbag to the expulsion of metal shrapnel during deployment. The fact that there have been no injuries, with these factors, may amount more to luck than to anything else.

NHTSA has identified certain makes and models of cars for which counterfeit airbags may be available (see a list at the bottom of this article). However, NHTSA says that only 0.1 percent of the cars in the U.S. may be affected. You may be affected if you have had the airbag replaced in your car within the last three years and it was not replaced by a new car dealership. If you have had your airbag replaced, or if you have bought a new airbag online, it is recommended that you contact the call center for your car’s manufacturer. You can get further information about call centers here.

Our Atlanta product liability attorneys are following recent news about Honda’s recall of 126,000 motorcycles with malfunctioning brakes, the second such recall done. These vehicle recalls show product defects in vehicles could potentially cause accidents, injuries, and even deaths.

The recalled motorcycles include GL-1800 motorcycles from 2001 through 2010, and those from 2012. Honda issued an initial recall of these motorcycles in December 2011, but continued receiving complaints. Honda told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that the reason for the problem was undetermined, and they were still investigating the cause.

Through July 24 of this year, Honda received 533 complaints about problems with the bikes. It turns out the secondary brake master cylinder can cause the rear brake to drag, which in turn can cause a crash or fire. The complaints include reports of eight small fires; luckily, no reports of crashes or injuries related to these brake problems were received.

In good news from our federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals this week, a girl will have another shot at justice in her product liability case.

Amber Wright was 13-years-old when she went to a hair salon in Carollton, Georgia. It was February 2005, and she wanted blonde highlights. The licensed cosmetologist used a product manufactured by a company called Farouk Systems named “Blondest Blonde. The cosmetologist had used the product before and didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, although Amber told her about feeling a burning sensation on her head. Things got worse from there, and nine days later the 13-year-old was in the emergency room with second and third degree burns on her scalp. Doctors stated that Amber had chemical burns, which can develop over time. Eventually, her burns were so severe that surgeons had to do a skin graft on her scalp.

Amber sued Farouk Systems for a defective product and failure to warn about potential scalp burns. Her trial had problems from the start, however. A chemist hired to testify was excluded under a Daubert ruling, which means the court found it did not meet scientific evidence standards. Her lawyers did not challenge that exclusion in the trial court. The lower court found that thus Amber had abandoned her product defect claims and therefore all her other evidence was inadmissible, and granted Farouk Systems summary judgment.

Monster Beverage Corp. faces multiple lawsuits claiming that product is linked to deaths and other serious health concerns.

Recently a lawsuit was filed against Monster Beverage Corp., manufacturers of the Monster Energy drink. The lawsuit was filed by a mother who alleges that her nineteen year old son died of cardiac arrhythmia last July due to his consumption of Monster Energy drinks. The mother claims that her son would not have died but for the fact that he drank two cans of Monster Energy drinks every day for the three years preceding his death.

Monster Beverage Corp. denies these allegations. They argue that there is no causal connection between the boy’s cardiac arrest and his consumption of Monster Energy drinks. The Company cites the coroner’s report which does not provide any indication that the boy died as a result of drinking Monster Energy drinks. They suggest that the facts show the boy drank Monster Energy drinks for years without incident.

A 2008 salmonella outbreak caused by tainted peanut butter is the subject of a trial currently underway in Georgia. The outbreak, which sickened 700 people and killed at least nine more, led to one of the largest food recalls in US history. Our Atlanta product liability attorneys have been following the case, which made the news again this week.

The 76-count indictment names Michael Parnell, the owner of Peanut Corporation of America, Mary Wilkerson, the plant’s quality assurance manager, and another former manager, Samuel Lightsey. The indictment accuses the company of shipping tainted products and hiding lab tests that showed they contained salmonella. Wilkerson is also charged with obstructing justice.

Lightsey pled guilty in May, agreeing to testify for the prosecution in exchange for a lighter sentence. In six days of testimony, Lightsey spoke of how the Peanut Corporation of America shipped contaminated products with falsified documents stating they were free of salmonella, and of the presence of mold and mildew within the plant. He also told the court of how employees used a pellet gun to shoot birds that got inside the plant.

Technology seems to be progressing at a crazy pace these days. Think of all the gadgets and things we take for granted now. So when our Atlanta product liability lawyers saw an article about driverless cars, it seemed like something that could possibly be not too far in the future of our lives. Google has a fleet of driverless cars and Audi and BMW are investing in the new technology too. Driverless cars are already being tested in some parts of the US.

Most car accidents are due to some kind of human error, whether negligent or reckless or otherwise. It is the number one cause of road accidents and as much as 90 percent of fatal car accidents are due to a human mistake. So theoretically, new driverless cars could save thousands of lives by reducing the risk of many accidents. It could especially counter the more extreme forms of dangerous driver behavior, such as road rage. And of course it could also impact drunk driving, as well, if those intoxicated could mainly, or someday entirely, depend on their car to drive them home.

The new question that will be faced once these driverless cars are on the roads is who will be liable in a car crash. The auto industry knows that there is a high likelihood of product liability law being more prevalent in car crash cases in the driverless future, although industry experts note that there will still, at least in the foreseeable future, be drivers in the car, just with less active driving than now. This is an issue that will have to be addressed and sorted out. Last year, Arizona introduced a law to cover driverless cars. Nevada and California have laws on the books about driverless cars, too, including a provision that requires a licensed driver to be in the car ready to take over driving at any time. So that driver would still have the potential for liability in crashes involving these new cars, as they do with regular driver-operated cars. It won’t be long before most states will have provisions to face this new technology. Jeff Dial, who introduced the Arizona law, said, “The more you deal with this issue, the more the issue grows and grows.One other idea to confront the product liability issue is to model driverless car liability after the way vaccine liability is handled. Congress created a special way to handle these cases in the 1980s, and now the cases go to special hearings and victims are paid through funding provided by a tax on vaccines.