A few years ago, I was in a pretty serious car accident. During the aftermath, I became really familiar with a lot of different types of lawyers. I worked with personal injury lawyers, insurance lawyers, and many others. Perhaps the most important, though, was the estate planning lawyer. I was really young, and neither my wife or I had thought about starting a will. But the accident kind of scared us into it. What would happen if one of us were to die? Even when still in the hospital, I was working with the lawyer to draw up a will. Now, I have some peace and security about what the future will be like if something should happen to me. And I have a lot of experience working with various types of lawyers! The accident was kind of a blessing in disguise in that way.
If you were injured due to a product that you thought you were using properly, it is possible that you can recover your damages through a personal injury lawsuit. Here are some questions you should ask yourself to determine if you have a case.
Was There A Warning Label?
The first thing you want to look out for is if there was any sort of warning label that could have prevented your injury if you had read it. The classic example of this is the McDonalds hot coffee lawsuit, where someone successfully sued the company for giving a customer hot coffee that scalded them. Simply putting the warning on the cup of coffee that the contents are hot is all it took to prevent future lawsuits. If there is no warning label in place that would have prevented your specific injury, you are one step closer to making a successful claim in court.
Were You Using The Product Properly?
Consider how you were using the product that injured you, and if you were injured because you were not using it in the proper situation. A great example of this is if someone were to toss you a bottle of a beverage and then you missed catching it. The bottle then would shatter glass around you, potentially causing you to be seriously injured from broken glass. This is a clear situation where the product that caused the injury was being misused, and it would be difficult to receive compensation for your injuries.
A successful example would be a shallow swimming pool that does not have proper warnings about diving into the pool. If you were to become injured by jumping in and colliding against the bottom surface, you could have a viable case on your hands.
Was The Product Defective?
It is possible that your injury happened because the product was defective in some way that directly led to your injury, and it broke during normal use. Consider a step ladder that you use for climbing. If one of the steps ended up breaking while you were using it, causing you to tumble to the ground, this would be a defect in the product that directly caused your injury. You were using the ladder in normal conditions, and it failed in a way you did not expect.
The same ladder may have a warning about not using the top of the ladder as a step. If the ladder broke while you were standing on the top of it as a step, the warnings and improper use of the ladder could cause you to lose any sort of personal injury case.
For more information, contact a personal injury lawyer.
Share23 April 2020
