Consumer products line supermarket shelves and fill people’s homes, but sometimes, these items can be dangerous or defective. Through no fault of your own, you can be harmed by thee products and suffer for months or even years before realizing your injuries.
An Auburn failure to warn lawyer can demonstrate the connection between a product and your injury in court. In addition, our dedicated product liability attorneys can show how the seller or manufacturer of a product failed to warn consumers about its dangers or risks. Get in touch with our team at Gideon Asen LLC today for more information on building your case.
The Basics of Failure to Warn Claims
Failure to warn claims—also known as marketing defect claims—exist because the seller of a product must disclose its risks, especially if those are preventable and known. A reliable personal injury lawyer in Auburn-Lewiston can separate these failure to warn claims from defect claims resulting from poor manufacturing or design flaws. These cases point to a seller marketing a product without telling consumers how to protect themselves from recognized risks.
Maine Revised Statutes Title 14 § 221 allows a person injured by a dangerous product to sue the seller, regardless of the level of care they take or how the item was received. For example, if a household product is found to cause a debilitating disease, individuals can sue the manufacturing company for damages, even if the seller has taken “all possible care” and the consumer did not buy the item directly from them.
Establishing Failure to Warn Claims
Liability for a faulty product goes beyond retailers and instead targets the companies that make and sell them before they reach consumers. Due to this, several elements must be proven for a claim to succeed:
- The product must be in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the consumer when the injury occurred
- The product must have caused the injury
- The manufacturer reasonably foresaw that customers would use or be affected by this product
- The product must be without significant change from when it was sold to when it caused the injury
Injuries from certain types of hazardous products can take a long time to show up (such as long-term toxic exposure), and a lawyer can build evidence to satisfy these factors. Sometimes, marketing defect claims depend on the labels and warnings the seller provided and whether the user could reasonably understand them. An attorney in Auburn-Lewiston who works on failure to warn cases can sift through any confusing or incomplete legal information for a plaintiff and determine if there is a viable case.
Comparative Negligence and Damages
The Supreme Judicial Court of Maine has determined that comparative negligence can thwart a person’s claim for damages resulting from a defective product. Through Austin v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc. an individual who discovers a flaw, understands the risk of using it, and gets injured from it, may not recover for any damages it causes.
This rule is essentially an “assumption of risk” applied to the strict liability that Maine creates for faulty products. For more information on comparative negligence and how it applies to a case, speak with a marketing defect lawyer in Auburn.
Get in Touch With a Failure to Warn Attorney in Auburn Today For Help With Your Claim
When a consumer product has harmed you without prior warning of its dangers, you could be eligible for compensation. An Auburn failure to warn lawyer can help prove how the item caused your injuries and uncover evidence that the manufacturer or seller did not provide proper warnings.
Call a personal injury attorney with Gideon Asen, LLC today to determine whether you have a claim against a liable product seller. We can set up an initial consultation to learn more about your case.
