Columbia Products Liability Lawyer
As a consumer, you have every right to expect that a product you purchase is safe to use, whether it’s a household cleaner, an appliance, a power tool, a prescription drug, or an automobile. Government agencies work to ensure consumer products are safely designed and manufactured and order recalls when necessary, but the manufacturers themselves should know better and take all reasonable measures to ensure their products are safe, with or without government oversight. Sadly, though, they often don’t. The Consumer Products Safety Commission reports that tens of millions of people seek medical attention every year for injuries related to consumer products – injuries that lead to deaths in the tens of thousands annually. Dozens of children’s products are recalled every year, with hundreds of incidents reported before the recalls are issued. Motor vehicles are recalled by the thousands for defective tires, seats, electrical and engineering defects that put passengers at risk of fires, explosions, rollovers and other deadly crashes. Every month the FDA recalls dangerous drugs and defective medical devices that are ineffective at best and pose a deadly risk at worst. Our Columbia product liability lawyers can help if you are injured.
While there are countless ways consumers can be injured or killed by defective products, none of them are acceptable. Manufacturers, distributors, and retailers have absolutely no excuse for putting dangerously unsafe products into the hands of unsuspecting consumers, and they can and should be held strictly liable for the harm they cause. At Simmons Law Firm, we represent individuals and families in Columbia and throughout South Carolina who have suffered the most catastrophic injuries or wrongful death because of a product defect. These cases are often incredibly complex and are hard-fought by the giant corporations and their teams of lawyers. Our experienced injury lawyers and litigators have the skills and resources to stand up to manufacturers, and our firm is determined to hold them accountable for injuries caused by their failure to design or manufacture a safe product or for their ethical lapses in marketing products in an unsafe manner.
If you or a family member were injured because some product was defective or dangerously unsafe, call Simmons Law Firm for a no-cost consultation to discuss what claims you may have and how we can help you hold the manufacturer accountable to you for the harm they have caused.
Types of Product Defect Cases We Handle
In products liability law, defective products fall into three different categories: design defects, manufacturing defects, and inadequate warning or marketing defects. Our firm helps injury victims harmed by any of these defects across a wide range of products. We can help you if you have been injured due to any of the following:
- Design Defects – When a product is defectively designed, every unit that is produced has the potential to cause injury. Design defects include electrical appliances and power tools that are built without safety guards or automatic shut-offs if they are dropped, tipped over, or left on too long. Children’s furniture such as bookcases can tip over when toddlers climb on them if they are not built sturdily or equipped with wall mounts. Defective automobile designs can include defective airbags that don’t deploy or explode on impact, cars that are not designed to be “crashworthy,” designs that allow rollovers and roof crushes, or designs that lead to preventable fuel-fed fires or explosions after an impact.
- Manufacturing Defects – A safely designed product can still be unreasonably dangerous if it is made incorrectly due to a breakdown on the assembly line, untrained or negligent factory workers, lack of quality control, use of substandard materials, and so forth. Manufacturing defects include children’s toys that break into small pieces that can be ingested, or defective medical devices that break apart after they are inserted into the patient’s body. Power tools or car brakes that fail at a critical moment can cause serious injury or death to the user.
- Failure to Warn Defects – An essential part of product safety is that the product’s packaging and the product itself contain sufficient warnings about dangers and adequate instructions for safe use. Household cleaners, industrial solvents, power tools, and recreational vehicles all need clear, conspicuous warnings that are easy to understand. Manufacturers can be held liable for these inadequate warnings, as well as marketing defects such as promoting prescription drugs for off-label uses that they were neither tested nor approved for.
Simmons Law Firm Helps Victims of Defective Product Injuries in Columbia and South Carolina
If you or a loved one has been harmed by a defective consumer product, an automotive defect, contaminated food products, a dangerous drug or a defective medical device, call Simmons Law Firm in Columbia at 803-779-4600. We can also be reached toll-free throughout South Carolina at 888-715-8818, or you can contact us online from anywhere in the state. Your initial consultation is free, and we don’t charge any fee unless we are successful in getting you compensation for your injuries.
