Products Liability

Unsafe and poorly designed products cause a staggering number of serious—and sometimes fatal—injuries to innocent victims every day. Although the exact number of product-related injuries that occur annually in the U.S. is unknown due to underreporting, the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that there are about 14 million product-related injuries each year that require emergency room or other hospital treatment.

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As one of Pennsylvania’s leading products liability law firms, SMB has successfully handled hundreds of defective product cases involving both consumer and industrial products. We represent injured consumers and workers in all of the four major categories of products liability claims:

  • Design Defect: One or more of the product’s components or aspects of its design are faulty (anything from the product’s packaging to its basic engineering) and causes injuries or property damage to consumers or workers.
  • Manufacturing Defect: An error or other mistake occurs in the product’s manufacturing process that causes injuries to consumers or workers (for example, a processed food product is contaminated with listeria and generates food poisoning illnesses; an unfinished or sharp edge on industrial equipment causes laceration injuries to workers).
  • Breach of Warranty: A product fails to comply with its express or implied warranties and that failure causes injuries to consumers or workers.
  • Failure to Warn: The product’s warnings or instructions are deficient and cause consumers or workers to misuse the product and injure themselves or others (for example, a product that can cause inhalation or poisoning injuries omits necessary safety information on its packaging).

Product manufacturers and sellers have an obligation to the purchasing public to ensure that their products are safe. When a product fails and injures or kills someone, manufacturers and sellers must be held responsible for the harm their product caused.”

Larry Bendesky

Unmatched Results

SMB has secured numerous multimillion-dollar verdicts and settlements for injured consumers and workers, including:

  • $14,000,000 settlement for roofer who suffered traumatic brain injury from defective hoist
  • $11,300,000 settlement for shooting injury victim caused by gun store’s failure to provide instructions
  • $9,600,000 settlement for mother and child severely burned by outdoor fire product
  • $8,900,000 settlement for worker severely injured when defective mobile office unit toppled onto him
  • $8,300,000 verdict for worker severely injured by utility pole installation machinery
  • $7,900,000 settlement for worker burned and paralyzed in electrical accident due to defective remote control system
  • $7,000,000 verdict for Conrail worker injured by insufficient training to operate freight car
  • $4,500,000 arbitration award for PECO worker injured because of backhoe’s defective alarm system
  • $4,200,000 settlement for pipefitter injured on aerial lift while welding I-beam

In addition to securing significant recoveries for our clients to help them rebuild their lives, SMB is also committed to forcing manufacturers to improve the safety of their products so that serious accidents never harm anyone else.

Unmatched Experience

SMB brings decades of experience to its accident cases involving consumer products and industrial equipment.

Because manufacturers, distributors, and sellers have a legal obligation to ensure the safety of their products, consumers and workers have every right to assume that the products, machinery, and equipment that they use each day have been properly designed and manufactured. But if products have either been designed or manufactured poorly—or are distributed without adequate safety warnings—they can cause catastrophic injuries or death.

When SMB takes a case, our lawyers want to know what happened and why. Aided by leading industry consultants, our exhaustive investigations include:

  • Reviewing product safety codes and regulations, industry standards, analogous products, patents, and design issues
  • Assessing previous safety tests
  • Reviewing all recall notices
  • Uncovering records of prior accidents, recalls, and product modifications
  • Determining whether machinery or equipment was equipped with safety features such as systems that disable it if a hazardous condition exists
  • Determining whether machinery or equipment included guards
  • Determining whether proper safety warnings were issued

Unmatched Compensation

SMB casts a wide net for potential defendants in any products liability case. The designers, manufacturers, distributors, sellers (and anyone else in the chain of commerce) are potentially liable for injuries caused by poorly designed, fabricated, or labeled products. SMB attorneys work tirelessly to help you get all the compensation to which you may be entitled—including payments for pain and suffering, emotional trauma, past, and future medical expenses, lost income, and future earnings.

If you have been injured, or a family member has been injured or killed, as a result of a faulty consumer product or a defective or unsafe piece of equipment or machinery at the workplace, SMB is committed to obtaining all the results you need and deserve.

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