Product Liability: Defective Machines and Consumer Products
Product failures do not always involve automobiles—sometimes, the defective product is a a piece of workplace machinery, a heating pad, a saw, or some other item. When these products fail, they can cause serious injuries or death, and the victims may be entitled to compensation for their medical bills, time missed from work, pain and suffering, and other things.
When a person is injured in the workplace, most people think of workers’ compensation—and while that is a good thought, the story doesn’t end there. If the injury was caused by a defective machine or the failure of an industrial product, the manufacturer of that product may be responsible. For instance, if a defective machine swung into someone, or a dangerous saw cut someone’s hand because the guard did not work correctly, the manufacturer of that defective machine or saw may be held responsible in a product liability lawsuit. That’s important, because worker’s compensation may refuse to compensate the injured person or may not provide enough compensation to cover the injured person’s losses.
Consumer products can also fail, resulting in manufacturer responsibility under Georgia product liability law. Our firm has seen heating pads that ruptured and burned an infant, a tractor that cranked when it should not have and ran over someone, and a workplace conveyor belt that injured a worker’s hand. All of these are potential product liability cases.