Defective products are the cause of untold thousands of injuries every year in the US. Consumers and others who have been injured by a defective product can sue the responsible party under strict product liability law, this law is different that personal injury law and product liability lawyers in Iowa City IA often find that the rules makes it easier for the injured party to be awarded damages.
Anyone who makes or sells a product can be held liable if the said product is found to be defective, the responsibility for the defective product lies with everyone involved in the manufacture and distribution chain regardless of the number of hands involved. The law requires that products sold to the public must meet the ordinary expectations of the public, when the product is found to have an unexpected default or is found to be dangerous it cannot be said that it meets this test.
The responsible parties:
Until such time as a product is actually sold in the marketplace there can be no product liability. For a law suit to prosper there must be a contractual relationship between the person injured by the defective product and the supplier. In many jurisdictions all that are required is that anyone can recover for injuries caused as long as the product in question was sold to someone; the buyer does not have to be the person who was injured.
Liability for the defect in the product can lie with anyone involved in the chain of distribution; this includes the manufacturer, any manufacturer that provided component parts, the assembler, the wholesaler and the store that retailed the product to the consumer. Product liability lawyers in Iowa City IA area know that the product must have been made available as a part of the suppliers business, a product purchased at a yard sale for example would not qualify nor could the seller in this case be considered as a liable party.
Naturally unsafe products:
It would be hard to exist in our world without products which by their very nature are unsafe. An electric carving knife that has been purposefully manufactured dull to avoid injuring a consumer would be quite useless. Although this may be the case the manufacturer and suppliers must give warnings of the dangers so that the consumer is armed with the necessary information when purchasing the naturally unsafe product.
Like most areas of law product liability actions can become quite complicated and as a result to pursue a case without the professional expertise of a product liability lawyers in Iowa City IA would rarely prosper.
