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A brief guide to product liability
The laws have changed when it comes to product liability claims, as it is no longer necessary to prove negligence. Another advancement in the product liability laws is that now anyone can make a claim even if the product wasn’t sold directly to them.
A product is deemed defective if the safety of the item is below what a consumer should expect within reason. Reasons for compensation claims are usually due to a defective design, defective build, defective warnings or negligence in warning customers after a fault is discovered.
But you should be aware that if a newer updated “safer” version of a product gets released, then the older version is not deemed defective. A court will take plenty of things into consideration when deciding whether goods are defective, this includes marketing, instructions and warnings so that the customer will know how to operate an item safely and use it how it was intended.
Pharmaceutical and medical products are another area of product liability but have additional legislation aiming to protect the public. These type of products are controlled by EC law and by the Medicines Act 1968 which covers manufacturing, distribution, marketing, supply and sale of these pharmaceutical products. Also the MHRA, Medicines and healthcare products and regulatory agency look after the safety and quality of medicinal products and puts rules out for trials, advertising and quality control.
When a pharmaceutical product is defective, their can be the potential for thousands of product liability claims to be made against the manufacturer. Affected parties can make individual claims, but many people join together to make legal proceedings with ‘multi party action’. This is an efficient and economic way to deal with a claim like this as it reduces legal fees and all the collective evidence can be presented to one judge.
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This article was written on behalf of Claims for you who offer no win no fee accident compensation claims
