I’ve been asked how my blog is going to handle liability for the product I sell. I’ve been asked questions like: “What is the legal liability for the products I sell?” or “How do I keep my product liability insurance from looking like I’m a bad employee?”.
The law is pretty clear about what damages you can recover for making a product that is faulty. How you can recover for selling a defective product is a little different. Essentially you can’t sue if the owner refuses to admit fault or if the product was damaged by the manufacturer. That’s where the liability meme comes in. I get asked a lot about this meme and why it seems to be so popular.
The liability meme is a joke that states that a product is not faulty if the owner refuses to admit fault or if the product was damaged by the manufacturer. This is not true.
The liability meme is not a joke. It is in fact a very serious phenomenon. In a lawsuit you can win if the plaintiff claims that the product was defective and the defendant admits to the defect, but then argues that the product was not defective. In other words, that product is not a defective product if it was damaged by the manufacturer. The owner might not have been aware of the defect at all.
If this is a product from the manufacturer, then it is a defective product. But it is not a defective product if it is manufactured by someone who knows how to make it.
Is this a product liability case? According to the lawsuit filed by Becton, Dickinson & Co., Inc., the plaintiff was injured when a piece of metal from a blood-testing kit fell on her back. She claimed her back pain, which made her feel dizzy, was caused by the metal that fell on her.Becton, Dickinson & Co., Inc. disputed this and argued that this was a defect because the metal was “unavoidably dangerous.
While this is a bit of a stretch, I think the court did the right thing in this case. Becton, Dickinson amp Co., Inc. was accused of selling a defective product. The plaintiff was injured as a result of the metal falling on her. Becton, Dickinson amp Co., Inc. argued that a defective design was not the cause of the injury because the plaintiff could have avoided the injury by following instructions that were clearly posted on the product packaging.
Becton’s claim for damages in the $50,000 fine is based on the fact that the plaintiff claims the metal was the cause of The Metal’s fall on her after she was arrested. The plaintiff has a long history of injuries to her neck, arms, and genitals. Becton, Dickinson amp Co., Inc. was involved in making the metal, and was found to have been hit and seriously injured at the hands of a cop who was on his way.
The question of “liability” has long been a cause for concern for manufacturers. The way that liability is defined depends on a lot of factors, but one of them is whether the manufacturer knew about the defect and whether the failure to warn was a “substantial factor” in causing the accident.
A case like that has been made for years, but I think the jury has been persuaded that the fault lies with the cop. The jury awarded Becton, Dickinson $1.8 million for the injuries, which is a very large sum of money for an accident with no apparent fault. Of course, Becton, Dickinson can’t go back and sue them for the rest of the injuries they suffered.
