Recovery for injuries sustained by consumers as a result of defective products are based on strict liability, negligence, and breach of warranty. The firm is recognized nationally for its products liability litigation involving motor vehicles, aircraft/helicopters, motorcycles, ATVs, toys/juvenile products, medical products, and consumer products. Our attorneys obtained one of the largest product liability verdicts in the country and the highest verdict at the time against Honda of almost $20 million and have successfully litigated numerous cases against Kawasaki, Yamaha and Suzuki. For a complete list of the firm's representative results, go to our Verdicts and Settlements section.
Products liability, like personal injury, falls under Tort Law. There are state statutory laws, and the United States Department of Commerce has instituted a Model Uniform Products Liability Act (MUPLA) for voluntary use the states. But, there are no federal products liability laws.
Products liability law deals with the liability of any party or all parties involved with the manufacture of a product for damages caused by it. Products liability claims can be based on negligence, strict liability, or breach of warranty of fitness depending on where the claim originates. Most of the time, products liability is considered a strict liability offense. This means that the plaintiff only has to prove that there is a defect in the product. Then, the manufacturer or supplier causing the damages is considered to be 100% responsible regardless of any degree of carefulness on their part or any lack of care by the consumer, nullifying any possibility of comparative or contributory negligence.
There are three types of product defects that can incur liability for manufacturers and suppliers: design defects, manufacturing defects, and defects in marketing. Design defects are inherent defects that exist before the product is manufactured. Manufacturing defects occur during the construction or production of the product, and defects in marketing involve improper instructions for safe use or operation of the product and/or failures to warn consumers of latent dangers in the product.
Products defects not only cover tangible products, like an automobile, but also intangibles (e.g., gas, asbestos or other chemical substance), naturals (e.g., pets), real estate (e.g., house or land) and writings (e.g., navigation charts).
Children Toys
In a landmark case, our attorneys obtained a confidential settlement during trial against a baby high chair manufacturer. Leesfield Leighton & Partners successfully represented the family of a child who was killed when he "submarined" and was suffocated in a baby high chair. The manufacturer failed to warn parents that the feeding tray may not be used to restrain a baby. The safety straps provided by the manufacturer are not used or will not secure the child. If a child is left momentarily unattended, he can slide against the tray and choke. This was a well known hazard to the juvenile furniture manufacturing industry.
More recently, our firm reached a $1,100,000 award for the wrongful death of a four-month-old baby who suffocated as a result of design defect in a juvenile product. For a complete list of the firm's representative results, go to our Verdicts and Settlements section.
Children Safety Equipment
Our firm has been extensively involved in representing clients who sustained injuries as a result of a defective safety product. The firm is recognized nationally for its litigation in this complex practice area. In another important case, our firm represented the parents of a baby killed by the deployment of an air bag. The parents received a child restraint as a baby shower gift. At trial, we demonstrated that the seat came in a carton promoting front seat use. The baby's mother placed the child in the front seat in a rear facing position. When the air bag deployed, this 8-month child was killed. The settlement terms were confidential.
In another similar case, we were able to achieve similar results through the use of internet resources such as the defendant's home page, engineering sources, and the Consumer Products Safety Commission which had been discussing this well-known issue for years. For a complete list of the firm's representative results, go to our Verdicts and Settlements section.
Medical Devices
Leesfield, Leighton & Partners has extensive experience handling and litigating cases involving defective medical devices used in hospitals, rehabilitation centers, clinics, or used at home by convalescing patients. For a complete list of the firm's representative results, go to our Verdicts and Settlements section.
Faulty or defective medical devices and equipment include some of the following:
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Automobile Defects
Recovery for injuries sustained by consumers as a result of defective products are based on strict liability, negligence, and breach of warranty. Our attorneys obtained one of the largest product liability verdicts in the country and the highest ever against Honda of almost $20 million and have successfully litigated numerous cases against numerous manufacturers.
In another important case, a 38 year old client sustained paralyzing injuries while operating a 1981 Suzuki GS750 motorcycle just after entering a highway from a rest stop in Greenwich, Connecticut. He drove off without realizing that he had left the side stand down. As he entered the first left hand curve about a quarter mile from the rest stop, the side stand contacted the road surface and failed to retract as required by Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. The extended side stand forced the GS750 off‑course and into the guardrail. Our client was ejected from the motorcycle and suffered a paralyzing spinal cord injury as well as other serious injuries. Our attorneys asserted that the GS750 was defectively designed because the side stand design did not assure reliable retraction, was not equipped with an auto retracting side‑stand, was not equipped with active warning devices such as flashing dash lights or buzzers and was not equipped with available electric or mechanical interlocks that would have prevented the riding of the motorcycle with the side stand down. A confidential settlement was reached with Suzuki after full fact and expert discovery was completed.
Some of our other successful representations include a $5,000,000 award in a products case involving an ATV, and a $4,750,000 settlement in a product liability case against a motorcycle manufacturer. Total verdicts and settlements for vehicle defects now exceed $50,000,000. For a complete list of the firm's representative results, go to our Verdicts and Settlements section.
Rollover & Crashworthiness
The high center of gravity of SUVs makes them more prone to rollover accidents (especially if the vehicle leaves the road or in emergency maneuvers) than lower vehicles. In recent years, Consumer Reports has found a few SUVs unacceptable due to their rollover risk. This was also dramatically demonstrated in one Fifth Gear show using a Range Rover. Modern SUVs are usually designed to prevent rollovers on flat surfaces.
Crashworthiness is the ability of a structure to protect its occupants during an impact. This is commonly tested when investigating the safety of vehicles. Depending on the nature of the impact and the vehicle involved, different criteria are used to determine the crashworthiness of the structure. Crashworthiness may be assessed either prospectively, using computer models or experiments, or retrospectively by analyzing crash outcomes. Several criteria are used to assess crashworthiness prospectively, including the deformation patterns of the vehicle structure, the acceleration experienced by the vehicle during an impact, and the probability of injury predicted by human body models. Injury probability is defined using injury criteria, which are mechanical parameters (e.g., force, acceleration, or deformation) that correlate with injury risk. A common injury criterion is the Head Injury criterion (HIC). Crashworthiness is assessed retrospectively by analyzing injury risk in real‑world crashes, often using regression or other statistical techniques to control for the myriad of confounders that are present in crashes.
In any crashworthiness case, our attorneys will hire the best experts in the field to perform crashworthiness testings on a subject vehicle. Our firm has been extensively involved in representing clients who sustained injuries as a result of the unworthy crash sustainability of a motor vehicle. The firm is recognized nationally for its litigation in this complex practice area. For a complete list of the firm's representative results, go to our Verdicts and Settlements section.
Seatbelt Injuries
A seat belt, sometimes called a safety belt, is a harness designed to secure the occupant of a car or other vehicle against harmful movement that may result from a collision or a sudden stop. As part of an overall occupant restraint system, seat belts are intended to reduce injuries by stopping the wearer from hitting hard interior elements of the vehicle or other passengers and by preventing the wearer from being thrown from the vehicle.
Our firm has been extensively involved in representing clients who sustained injuries as a result of a defective seat belt or a defective restraining system. Our attorneys have reached a confidential award against General Motors Corporation for its negligence in placing a defective restraint system in a 1993 Saturn Coupe. The plaintiff, a 14-year old passenger, was injured when the 2‑door sedan collided with a Chevy van. She suffered dramatic and irreversible neurological trauma which has rendered her mute, unable to swallow food so that she is fed via a PEG tube, extraordinary cognitive loss, loss of peripheral vision, photosensitivity, loss of fine motor control, isolation and loss of all expectation of a normal life and future.
In a more recent case, our attorneys secured a $825,000 settlement against Chrysler when two Navy sailors were injured by the rear seat lap belts in a navy van. The lawsuit against the auto manufacturer was based on the defendant's failure to have shoulder restraints available which would have prevented the injury. For a complete list of the firm's representative results, go to our Verdicts and Settlements section.
Airbag Litigation
Airbags involve the extremely rapid deployment of a large cushion. While airbags can protect a person under the right circumstances, they can also injure or kill. Newer airbags trigger at a lesser speed; nonetheless, passengers must remain at least 25 centimeters (10 in) from the bag to avoid injury from the bag in a crash. Injuries such as abrasion of the skin, hearing damage (from the sound during deployment), head injuries, eye damage for spectacle wearers and breaking the nose, fingers, hands or arms can occur as the airbag deploys.
In 1990, the first automotive fatality attributed to an airbag was reported, with deaths peaking in 1997 at 53 in the United States. Dual‑depth airbags appeared on passenger cars in 2005. By that time, deaths related to airbags had declined, with no adults deaths and 2 child deaths attributed to airbags that year. Injuries remain fairly common in accidents with an airbag deployment.
Leesfield, Leighton & Partners has extensive experience handling and litigating cases involving defective airbag systems. For a complete list of the firm's representative results, go to our Verdicts and Settlements section.
Defective Tires
Many tires sold in the U.S. look normal but may have defects or manufacturing short‑cuts that lead to fatal car accidents. Although it comes as a shock to most consumers, many tire‑manufacturing companies employ short‑cuts to reduce the cost of products and labor in the tire manufacturing process. The bottom‑line profit drives many tire manufacturers to produce large quantities of tires with low overhead.
Another way tire manufacturers try to save money is by reducing the strength and durability of a tire - thereby shortening the integral lifespan of the rubber and thread, forcing the consumer to replace the tires more frequently. In the tire manufacturing process, the interliner is the tire's foundational structure. No tire should be manufactured and sold unless the critical interliner is wrapped with a sufficient overlap at the splice to assure full and complete interliner continuity. If a tire has a defective interliner, this weak point can cause a separation of the tread from the belts and, ultimately a destructive failure of the tire. Such failures often result in loss of control and subsequent injuries to the driver, passengers, and other property or pedestrians.
Another important factor in manufacturing tire rubber is the use of anti‑oxidant and anti‑ozone components. These components actually control and limit the aging of the tire. The lack of these components may cause the rubber to deteriorate in strength while the depth of the rubber seems unaffected. Allegations indicate that some tire companies may knowingly remove anti‑oxidant and anti‑ozone components [known as the AO package] from the base rubber stock used in the manufacturing of the tire as a cost control measure.
Many experts have stated that car tires in the warm, temperate regions of the Southern United States, including the state of Florida are more susceptible to premature aging. This increased wear and tear is a result of greater heat exposure and well as the absence of anti‑oxidants.
To contact one of our experienced trial lawyers call our Miami law office today at 800-836-6400 or click here for a free and full case evaluation.
