By: Darrell Castle
If there’s a warranty, then your product liability case might be even easier to prove.
If you’ve been injured by a defective product, contact an experienced attorney immediately.
Darrell Castle & Associates has handled products liability cases of all shapes and sizes and would love to help you. Call (901) 327-1212 today for a FREE case evaluation, or fill out the contact form to the right to have someone contact you.
Video Transcript
If you buy a product that has a written warranty, will that affect your case?
Hi, I’m Darrell Castle, an attorney licensed to practice law in the state of Tennessee, and the answer to that question is YES, it very well could affect your case.
If you’re injured by a product that has a written warranty and makes representations about performance, it could make your case easier to prove. It could be easier to prove that product had a manufacturer’s or designed defect.
See, products liability is when the manufacturer or seller is held liable for placing a defective product in the hands of a consumer. Consumers’ basic expectations should be met by the product and there are three basic types of product defects.
One is a designed defect, another is a manufacturer’s defect and the other is a marketing defect.
Now, here’s an example of how that might work.
Let’s say you bought a defective heater – a space heater – the kind of thing you’d put in your bedroom on a chilly night to keep it warmer. That electric heater is supposed to have a tip over feature in case during the night it tips over, it’s supposed to cut the heat off so it doesn’t start a fire.
But it’s designed without that – it’s designed without that tip over feature so that when it tips over, it starts a fire and injures people.
Another example might be that same heater, but instead of being designed improperly, it’s designed to have that tip over feature but it’s manufactured without it. That would be a manufacturer’s defect.
Those are two examples.
As far as a marketing defect, let’s say you had a drug that was prescribed to you by your doctor to treat type 2 diabetes. Instead of treating the type 2 diabetes, that drug caused bladder cancer and there was no warning on the label that said “CAUTION: You may get bladder cancer from this drug.” That is definitely a marketing problem and a marketing defect.
Now those are some of the examples of how these defects might work, and if there’s a warranty folks, then that makes it even easier.