Miskin Law: Personal Injury Law Firm, Peterborough and Whitby

Miskin Law: Personal Injury Law Firm, Peterborough and Whitby

The majority of personal injury lawsuits arising out of car accidents or falls on poorly maintained properties. Somewhat less frequently, though still often, personal injury lawsuits arise from suffering caused by malfunctioning or defective products. If you feel you’ve been injured because of a defective product, get in touch with Miskin Law, your trusted and experienced personal injury law firm in Peterborough and Whitby.

What Can Be Classified As a “Defective Product”?

A wide range of products and goods can be considered defective, i.e., unreasonably hazardous or unsafe. It may also be the case that a product is not accompanied by sufficient instructions for safe use or a particular hazard of use.

Some examples are:

• A toy contains small parts that are a choking hazard to children under a certain age, but the packaging fails to warn of this.
• A mobile phone contains a battery that either explodes or combusts. Samsung recently recalled a particular line of its cellular phones because the batteries were allegedly spontaneously combusting and, in some cases, leaving users with burns.
• Breast augmentation implants may fail or leak. Although there are inherent risks in choosing to have cosmetic surgery, patients who are not adequately apprised of all the risks may have grounds to sue. One of the more famous product liability cases from Canadian courts is the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Hollis v. Dow Corning Corp., [1995] 4 SCR 634, which dealt with defective breast implants. The case centered around the liability of the manufacturer versus the doctor, who had a responsibility to pass along the manufacturer’s warnings to the client for her to understand the product’s risks.

How Do I Know If My Injury Was Caused by a Defective Product?

Sometimes it can be difficult to know whether your injuries have truly been caused by a defective product, or insufficient warning, or simply by misuse. This is one of the reasons that this is a specialized area of law for personal injury lawyers.

The law must strike a balance between accepting that most products carry some inherent risk (e.g., a clothes iron or hair curling iron can cause injury when used incorrectly) and drawing the line when a product is simply too dangerous to put on the market. The sufficiency of usage instructions and warnings will also vary substantially, depending on the nature of the product.

Can I Take Legal Action If I’ve Been Injured by a Defective Product?

If you have been injured by a product, and believe that the product’s malfunction or failure to operate properly caused your injury or that you did not receive adequate warning of its hazards, it is certainly possible that you have legal recourse.

If you are considering taking legal action, it would be wise to save the product, any packaging that you still have, and any instructions. It is also inadvisable to meddle too much with the product itself or to disassemble it to try to determine whether it is defective. In product liability cases, depending on the nature of the claim, the product itself could become an important piece of evidence. It should be left in the condition that it was in when you were injured.

Where Do I Start?

If you have been injured and suspect that a defective product or insufficient instructions are responsible for your injuries, it is wise to speak with a lawyer. At an initial consultation, be prepared to explain the course of action that led to your injuries, bring the responsible product with you (if possible), and bring any instruction manual or packaging that accompanied the product.

In some cases, where it is abundantly clear that a manufacturer has produced and distributed a large number of a product with the same defect (as often happens when products are mass-produced), an injured person may commence a class action lawsuit on behalf of a number of plaintiffs. Class action lawsuits are useful where it is likely that multiple claims will be brought in relation to the same manufacturing error by a manufacturer, as the facts will be sufficiently similar in all cases to streamline the legal process. Class actions may also be used in defective product cases simply to reimburse consumers for the amount they paid for the unsatisfactory product.

Call Miskin Law: The Trusted Personal Injury Law Firm in Peterborough and Whitby

Our lawyers are experienced in personal injury lawsuits relating to defective products. If you have suffered losses as a result of injury by a suspected defective product, call us today at 1-877-565-8621.