Dangerous products may be lurking in your home right now without you knowing.

As a product liability lawyer Memphis has relied on for decades, I want to tell you about the most dangerous product defects I see in my work.

I don’t tell you this to alarm you, but rather so that you can keep yourself and your family safe when buying and using potentially dangerous products. It’s not even necessarily the products themselves that are dangerous. But there are potential defects that can turn useful devices into hazardous ones.

There are three types of defects to watch out for in every product you buy:

Design Defects

Since winter is right around the corner, and so many of us will be using extra devices to warm our homes, let’s use the popular electrical space heater as an example.

Many families rely on an electrical space heater to heat their bedroom at night while they’re sleeping.

These space heaters often have a protection mechanism that disables the device if it tips over for any reason.

But imagine that it was not designed that way for some reason, and it did not have this safety feature. Imagine that your dog tipped it over at night, initiating a fire. This is a classic (and scary) example of a design defect.

Manufacturing Defects

Using the same example, imagine that your space heater was designed to have that tip-over safety mechanism, but the physical mechanism wasn’t manufactured properly and it didn’t work.

The same thing could happen then. Your dog could accidentally tip the heater over while you’re sleeping, causing a fire. Either way, this theoretical example puts your family in a very bad situation, all through no fault of your own.

And then there’s the third type of defect…

Marketing Defects

A marketing defect is a defect in the way a product is marketed. This happens when a product has inadequate warnings or instructions about how to use it properly.

The manufacturer of a product has a duty to warn its users of dangers that are not obvious. These kinds of defects typically occur with products that are safe when they are used for their intended use, but become dangerous when they are used in unintended ways.

One example of a marketing defect could be a medical device without proper instructions for its use.

Another example is a drug that fails to properly warn potential users of the risks of side effects.

This happened to Actos, a drug designed and manufactured to treat type 2 diabetes. Actos failed to properly warn potential users about the chance of developing bladder cancer from using the drug, though the company allegedly knew the risks through clinical trials.

If you suspect you have sustained injuries from a product in your home, call us for a FREE consultation.

While manufacturing defects are common, they can be hard to prove. If you believe you have been injured by one of these defects, you need an experienced product liability lawyer Memphis residents trust.

It isn’t fair that you or your loved one might have been injured due to a manufacturer’s negligence. You shouldn’t be held responsible for medical bills or lost wages from time off work for an accident that wasn’t your fault. The manufacturer should be held liable and should be required to compensate you. And they have insurance for this.

You can — and should — do something about it. Here at Darrell Castle & Associates, PLLC, we work hard to get you the compensation you deserve. Call us today at (901) 327-1212 for a FREE case evaluation, or fill out the form on this page to have someone contact YOU. There are absolutely no strings attached, and it would be our honor to tell you how we can serve you.