Articles Posted in defective products

In Stuhlmacher v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., plaintiff was injured in November of 2008 while building a cabin for his parents. The cabin was in Sullivan, Indiana. A few days before his accident, plaintiff purchased a four-legged stepladder from a big box hardware retailer, so he could work on the roof.

During his first time using the ladder, it fell from the side of the house. He grabbed onto the rafters and then fell to the ground on the right front rail of the ladder. His groin made contact with the ladder when he fell. He suffered a shoulder injury, but his most serious personal injury was to his penis. His doctor diagnosed plaintiff with Peyronie’s disease.

Peyronie’s disease is painful condition that causes one’s penis to become bent, which among other things prevented plaintiff from having sexual intercourse with his wife.
As our Boston personal injury attorneys can explain, when a victim of a personal injury is no longer able to have a normal intimate relationship with his or her spouse, the law provides a remedy known as loss of consortium damages, which can be awarded to the victim’s spouse.
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According to recent news report from CNN, professional golfer Greg Norman was hospitalized after being injured in a chainsaw accident. Norman had posted pictures of himself with the chainsaw on the social media platform Instagram with a caption that it was time trim the sea grapes and that you should never pay someone to do a job you can do yourself.

Later that same day, Norman posted another photograph showing himself in a hospital with an air cast on his arm. In this photograph he told viewers that he was lucky to be alive, to always respect chainsaws, and the he still had the use of his left hand.

It has been reported that he injured himself while using the chainsaw and required surgery to repair the resulting nerve damage. He is expected to make a full recovery.

While it appears that Norman will be okay when his arm heals, our injury attorneys in Boston know accidents involving power tools and heavy machinery often end with more tragic results.

While there are many occasions where the injury was truly an accident for which nobody was at fault, there are also times when the injury is the result of a defectively designed tool, or the result of the manufacturer failing to adequately warn users of dangers the company knew or should have known about.
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Our Boston wrongful death lawyers understand that in some cases, proving a relationship between a plaintiff and third party may require significant litigation.

Vesely v. Armslist LLC, a case heard in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, involved a woman killed by a man she met on an internet dating website. The man attempted to pursue a romantic relationship with the decedent, but she declined his advances.

After being rejected by the victim, the man purchased a .40 caliber handgun from a man in Seattle via an online classifieds page created to facilitate the purchase and sale of weapons. The website featured several disclaimers that stated owners of the site are in no way involved in any transactions between parties and that they in no way guarantee the legality of any transaction conducted via the website.

According to the website, any person who engages in a transaction is responsible for following all state and federal laws pertaining to the sale of guns and ammunition, and if a party has any questions, they should contact the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) directly.
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Our Boston personal injury lawyers know rules of evidence can lead to complex litigation.

In Lee v. Smith & Wesson Corporation, the plaintiff was injured while shooting target practice with his revolver manufactured by the defendant. The plaintiff fired two shots without incident and, on the third shot, was severely injured when the gun hit him in the eye.

According to the plaintiff’s testimony, the cylinder that holds the bullets swung open after the shot was fired due a manufacturing defect and hit him in the safety glasses. The safety glasses broke, causing significant trauma and loss of vision to his right eye.
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In May 2009, engineers at GM learned that black box evidence obtained from Chevrolet Cobalts confirmed that hundreds of thousands of cars had fatal defects. The evidence showed that if the vehicle was bumped or weighed down, the engine’s power could shut down and deactivate airbags. Despite this knowledge, along with additional documents and studies that confirmed the report, GM told families of accident victims that it did not have enough evidence to confirm the defect. After years of denial, GM finally recalled 1.6 million Cobalts and other vehicles that could also be affected by the defect.

When a defective or dangerous product causes harm to a consumer, the company must be held liable. While many corporations may fight allegations on other grounds, this is a case of egregious deceit in an attempt to deny victims their rightful recovery. Failure to admit the fatal defects has also put hundreds of thousands of additional motorists and their passengers in danger. Our Boston personal injury attorneys are dedicated to protecting the rights of accident victims.
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When looking for a new bicycle, most of us want one that fits our needs. Whether that’s our color preference, the size or the way it rides, we all want a bike that will work for us. But how many of us think about safety when purchasing a new bike? We kind of just assume that it’s made properly and default free upon purchase.

But often we’re wrong.

Officials with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) have recalled a number of bikes in recent weeks. These recalls have been because of faulty brakes, fall hazards and serious injury risks.

Our Boston defective products attorneys understand that consumers were deluged with 2,363 recalls last year, or about 6.5 recalls each day, covering consumer products, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and food, according to data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Department of Agriculture and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Many of these recalls involve expense bikes aimed at serious riders.
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Airbags are one of the most important safety features in your vehicle as the airbag can cushion the blow and reduce the force of impact you feel in an auto accident. When airbags don’t work, the risk of serious injury significantly increases. A failure to deploy isn’t even the biggest risk, as an airbag that deploys suddenly when it isn’t supposed to could actually cause an accident that leads to serious injury or death.

Our Boston defective products lawyers know that auto manufacturers are responsible for ensuring the safety of all vehicles, including safety features like the airbag. Unfortunately, things can still go wrong. It is important for every driver to keep up-to-date on news of car recalls and to respond promptly if they learn that their car is being recalled because of an airbag problem or other defect. Recently, for example, as many as 803,000 owners of Toyota crossover vehicles and sedans got news that their vehicle is now being subject to a recall.
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The medical device manufacturer, Stryker, describes itself as “one of the world’s leading medical technology companies” that is “dedicated to helping healthcare professionals perform their jobs more efficiently while enhancing patient care.” With such a positive description of their dedication to enhancing patient care, it would be reasonable for patients to expect that the company takes safety seriously and that the company doesn’t release products on the market that are dangerous.

In fact, our Boston defective hip implant lawyers know that patients have the right to expect that every medical device that is manufactured and sold is tested and is safe. Product liability laws in the United States are designed to ensure that manufacturers take the blame for any failure in their devices specifically because they are in the best position to test them and ensure they won’t hurt patients. As such, if a medical device turns out to be defective and causes unexpected harm to patients, the individuals who are hurt don’t even have to prove negligence to file a lawsuit and recover compensation.

Despite the laws protecting patients, however, news of yet another recalled Stryker product may raise concern among patients that the company perhaps has some deficiencies in its product testing systems that could be putting customers at risk.
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Recently, our Boston transvaginal mesh lawyers reported that two transvaginal mesh claims had been resolved, one in a settlement and one in which the jury awarded a plaintiff $2 million in compensation.

In awarding the monetary compensation to the plaintiff, the jury indicated that the transvaginal mesh product was defective and that the manufacturer, C.R. Bard Inc. was liable for failure to warn. Failure to warn is a specific legal term that will come up again in other transvaginal mesh claims and that is also important in many other cases brought against companies who release dangerous products, unsafe drugs or defective medical devices.
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