Being hurt unexpectedly under any circumstances can be a jarring experience, but suffering an injury at home while using a product you were assured was safe and well-designed can be especially traumatic. Even worse, taking legal action over this sort of personal injury works differently from filing suit over an injury sustained in an accident like an auto wreck, and moving forward without a comprehensive understanding of “product liability” law can be disastrous for your odds of getting fair financial restitution.
Fortunately, there is help available from dedicated personal injury attorneys who are unafraid to take your claim all the way to trial if that is what it takes to get you a positive case result. With a Tempe defective products lawyer with over 30 years of experience by your side, you will have the best chances to establish legal fault for your injuries and recover for all your compensable losses.
“Strict Liability” for Specific Product Defects
Any company that makes and sells consumer products is expected to produce goods with reasonably safe designs that are free of dangerous manufacturing errors and come packaged with accurate instructions for safe use as well as warnings about possible risks associated with normal use. A company that distributes a product that is defective in any of these ways—design, manufacturing, or “marketing”—may hold strict liability for injuries and losses stemming directly from that defect.
In practice, this means that someone who gets hurt due to a defective product does not necessarily have to prove that a specific “negligent” act by the product’s manufacturer led to it becoming dangerous. Instead, they just have to prove that a qualifying defect existed in the product prior to the moment that product left its maker’s direct control that no one else tampered with the product to make it dangerous prior to when the injured person took possession of it and that the injuries and losses named in the claim were caused directly and primarily by that defect—all things a skilled Tempe product liability attorney could provide vital help establishing to the satisfaction of a civil court.
Getting Paid Fairly Within Filing Deadlines
Anyone who can prove that a defective product directly caused them to sustain a personal injury can seek restitution for both economic and non-economic consequences of that injury, as well as both past and future losses relative to when the injury first occurred. In practice, this may mean seeking compensation for damages such as:
- Physical pain and suffering
- Lost enjoyment/quality of life
- Short-term and long-term medical bills
- Psychological distress and emotional anguish
- Lost work income, benefits, or earning ability
- Personal property damage, including costs of repairing/replacing the defective product in question
Importantly, though, product liability claims are subject to the same statutory filing deadline set by Arizona Revised Statutes § 12-542 for most other personal injury claimants: two years at most after the injury in question first occurred. Additionally, as a defective products lawyer in Tempe could further explain, A.R.S. § 12-551 sets a unique “statute of repose” deadline for product liability claims, which generally prohibits such a case from moving forward if the claimant waits more than 12 years after purchasing the product to file suit.
Talk to a Tempe Defective Products Attorney Today
You have a right as a consumer to expect that everything you buy online or in a brick-and-mortar is free of any dangerous defects or hazards that could arise during normal use. Any manufacturer who fails to provide a safe product along these lines could be strictly liable for harm their product causes—but actually compelling such a manufacturer to pay for your damages can be far from simple.
When an unreasonably dangerous product has injured you, you should make speaking with a qualified Tempe defective products lawyer your top priority. Call the Phillips Law Group today for a consultation.
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