What Do I Do If I Am Injured by a Defective Product?
Between customer and manufacturer, there is an expectation for how a product should work. When the customer uses a product as one would expect and/or according to the directions and is injured as a result, then the seller/manufacturer is liable for the injury.
If you or someone you love has been injured as a result of a defective product, you must seek medical attention right away. Additionally, you should also seek guidance from an experienced defective product attorney.
Once you prove in an Arizona court of law that the defective product resulted in injuries and/or property damage, you are eligible for compensation.
Comparative Negligence
In Arizona, the seller/manufacturer may make the case that your negligence caused your own injuries. Even if they can prove this, Arizona is still a comparative negligence state, which means that if the seller/manufacturer is only partially responsible for your injuries, you may still seek damages in a personal injury lawsuit.
If the total amount of damages adds up to $50,000 and the court finds the seller/manufacturer responsible for 50% of the negligence, then you are awarded $25,000, or 50% of the total amount of damages.
Kinds of Defects
When it comes to liability for defective products, there are two forms of defection.
If the product is defective as a result of its design, then it is called a design defect. The manufacturer made the product according to its blueprint, but the design itself proved to be defective.
Defective designs can result in injury and damage to property if the seller/manufacturer marketed the product to perform a certain way, but the product’s design failed to perform as claimed.
On the other hand, the product design may be correct, but the manufacturer failed to build the product strictly according to the design. This is a manufacturing defect.
In this defect, the product is not able to perform as it was intended because it was not built the way it was supposed to. Once again, the seller/manufacturer would be liable for any injury or damage to property resulting from these defects.
Seeking Damages
According to the discovery rule in Arizona, those injured by defective products have two years to file a personal injury claim from the time they discovered their injuries and/or damaged property.
Damages can be both economic and noneconomic. Damages that can be easily added up in dollars and cents (such as medical bills, repairs, etc.) would be considered economic damages.
For damages falling into the category of “pain and suffering,” those are not as easy to define in financial terms, yet they are still accounted for in noneconomic damages.
Depending on the severity of the injuries and negligence of the seller/manufacturer, you could be eligible for both economic and noneconomic damages in a personal injury lawsuit.
The seller/manufacturer is responsible to notify customers and recall products that are known to be defective. Those who fail to do so are therefore liable for any resulting injuries and damage.
For more information about how an Arizona personal injury attorney can help you with your defective product case, contact Ray Arenofsky at 480-345-0444 or visit our website.
