Electronic cigarettes and vaping technology have been growing in popularity, but along with this trend has come a worrying number of reports of lung injury. Some state and local governments have urged people to stop vaping after recent reports of an outbreak of lung disease connected to vaping products.
Authorities don’t know yet what is causing the recent outbreak, but for years there have been reports of health problems associated with vaping. A growing number of people have filed product liability lawsuits against tobacco companies and others, seeking to hold the defendants liable for their injuries. These lawsuits allege design defects, failure to warn and other problems.
Product liability is the legal theory that allows the injured to hold a company liable for their damages after they are injured by one of the company’s defective products. These defects can come in many forms. The major categories are design defect, manufacturing defect and marketing defect.
A product that is defectively designed is inherently unsafe. When used according to instructions, it presents an unreasonable risk of injury. A defectively manufactured defect had a good design, but something went wrong in the manufacturing process that made it unreasonably dangerous.
Marketing defect cases are somewhat more complicated. A product that has been defectively marketed is not safe for the use for which it was marketed. In other words, the design and manufacturing may have been fine, but those who marketed the product failed to warn the consumer about a hidden risk of a known or foreseeable injury that made the product unreasonably dangerous.
Consumers often joke about how so much product packaging these days comes with long lists of warnings that should be obvious. However, those warnings may be there for a good reason. When a company fails to warn consumers about a hidden risk, it’s possible to hold them liable for damages that were caused as a result.
Category: Products Liability
Primary Target URL: http://www.crandalllaw.com/Personal-Injury/Products-Liability/
Primary Anchor text: manufacturers; retilers; products liability; inadequate safeguards;