Miami Accident Lawyer Blog
Today’s vehicles are built in a way to ensure the safety of each and every individual riding within them. Yet, manufacturing defects do occur. Some defects can lead to catastrophic injuries or even death. Defective airbags can lead to such injuries. Recently, six fatalities were traced to the Takata airbag defect. For drivers involved in airbag-deployment accidents, instead of their airbag saving them, it shoots out shards of metal right through the airbag. This led to millions of recalls. In March of 2015, a 2003 Honda Civic crashed in Florida, and its driver did not survive. Police reports later linked the driver’s fatality to a faulty airbag inflator that basically ruptured in the crash.
If you or a loved one is injured in a similar fashion or incurred other catastrophic injury, it is critical that you retain an experienced catastrophic injury attorney. The Miami, Florida catastrophic injury attorneys at Gerson & Schwartz PA are here to help. We have helped catastrophically injured people for more than 40 years. We are well versed in the law and know how to get you adequate compensation for your loss.
The Basics of Florida’s Products Liability Law
If you or a loved one is injured because of a defective product here in Florida, you may very well have a viable lawsuit based on products liability theories. A product may be defective if its design is unreasonably dangerous. Nevertheless, merely being a dangerous product does not necessarily mean that it is a defective product. For instance, a knife is sharp, obviously, and it is used to cut through things. Making a knife dull would make it safer, yes, but it would significantly take away from the product’s usefulness or utility.
There must be a balance here. In researching this balance, the courts use various tests to determine if the product is indeed defectively designed. In doing so, there are some courts that require the product be proven defective in design as well as unreasonably dangerous because of a certain defect. Courts differ in their definition of “unreasonably dangerous.” Some courts define this as a product that is more dangerous than a reasonably prudent consumer would expect it to be. Others define it as a product with risks high enough that a reasonably prudent seller would not place the product in the stream of commerce. Third, there are some courts that define it as when the product’s risks outweigh its benefits.
Take Action for Your Case
Clearly, the law surrounding catastrophic injuries and products liability is quite complex. Due to the increasing complexity of the law, it is critical that you hire an experienced products liability attorney in Miami, Florida if the event of a catastrophic injury. For more than 4 decades, we have successfully obtained justice in several catastrophic injury and defective product injury cases including defective automobiles, trucks and tires, medical devices, industrial equipment, and even cigarettes. As it turns out, the majority of our cases pertain to defective automobiles and trucks, such as the defective airbag situation listed above. Defective automobile cases fuel system fires, rollovers, seats, seat belts, tires and other flaws have been the principal subject of our product liability work. Tobacco, soft drinks, fast food, drugs, medical devices, tires, and household products are included on the long and growing list of product defect cases we have handled.