Florida Law
Florida Personal Injury Law: Products Liability
Personal Injury Law: Products Liability
If a person is injured by a product, he or she has the right to sue the product's maker for damages. And, depending on the particular situation, he or she may also be able to sue the assembler, wholesaler, retailer, or anyone else involved in the product's production and distribution. Even used car dealers who sell rebuilt or reconditioned automobiles can be products liability defendants. (For purposes of this chapter, the term "manufacturer" is used to describe all potential defendants.)
A plaintiff injured by a product may bring a lawsuit under any of three theories of recovery: the tort theories of strict liability and negligence (see the Personal Injury Law: General chapter), and the contract theory of breach of warranty (see the Contract Law chapter). Each of these theories has its advantages and disadvantages, and an attorney may use one rather than another to increase the likelihood of recovery, or indeed, may use all three. But the most important of these theories by far, and the one which has most affected America's commercial landscape, is strict liability.
Products Liability Lawsuits Based on Strict Liability
As discussed in the Personal Injury Law: General chapter, strict liability, unlike negligence, is liability without fault. Even if a defendant's actions are entirely reasonable, strict liability requires the defendant to pay damages if he or she caused the plaintiff's injury. Historically, strict liability was only applied when a wild animal or an ultrahazardous activity caused an injury. But in 1963, strict liability was first used in a defective product context and since then, has become the principal theory of recovery in product liability cases. Among the reasons for applying strict liability to defective product cases is that manufacturers (often large corporations) are in a better position to incur the costs of the injuries caused by their products than the individuals who are injured. Moreover, by requiring a manufacturer to pay damages for any injury caused by its product, regardless of fault, the law is encouraging manufacturers to produce safe and dependable products.
Defective Products
Manufacturers are strictly liable only for defective products which cause injuries. Therefore, a threshold requirement for an injured plaintiff is to show a product to be defective. Exactly what constitutes a defect remains imprecise, but courts agree that there are three separate types of defects: manufacturing defects, design defects, and defects in warning.
Manufacturing defects occur when a product is not manufactured according to its design: a screw is forgotten, a protective cover is improperly fastened; somewhere a mistake is made, and the product is still sent into the stream of commerce. A product with a design defect may be properly manufactured, but the design itself is dangerous. Manufacturers have a duty to safely design products for their intended use and for misuse, if such misuse is foreseeable. For example, a kitchen cleaning agent must be designed to safely clean countertops and stovetops, but since it is foreseeable that a child might drink the product, a manufacturer may have to design the product to be safe when drunk or with a child-proof cap.
A defect in warning concerns a manufacturer's failure to adequately instruct or warn a consumer about a product's dangers. According to the law, a consumer has the right to be properly apprised of any risk in using the product. Only then can he or she make an informed decision as to whether, or in what manner, to use a product. This duty to warn includes products already sold. If a manufacturer discovers a product's potential hazards after the product has been introduced into the market, the manufacturer must warn those early consumers. The manufacturer may even have to recall the product, as has happened in the automobile and processed food industries.
Product dangers which are "open and obvious" do not require warnings. But what constitutes "open and obvious" is not strictly defined. Something that is obvious to one person may be unforeseeable to another. Consequently, some manufacturers will warn consumers about even remote risks so as to defend against potential lawsuits.
Proximate Cause
In addition to proving that a product is defective, a plaintiff must also show that the product caused his or her injury. While this may not be a difficult task in many situations, it can be in others. For example, proving that a particular drug caused a plaintiff's injury entails a great deal of medical evidence. It may also entail battling arguments made by the defendant that the injury was caused by other reasons unrelated to the drug. And because medicine remains an inexact science, the answer to the question of causation is sometimes never satisfactorily determined.
Damages
If a plaintiff is successful, he or she can recover compensatory damages for personal injury or injury to property. A plaintiff can also receive punitive damages if the manufacturer's actions were willful or particularly malicious. Recent legislation, however, has limited punitive damages in the products liability area. A punitive damage award of more than three times the compensatory damages is considered excessive and subject to reduction. Also, 35 percent of every punitive damage award goes to the state of Florida. The remaining 65 percent goes to the plaintiff.
It is important to note that the doctrine of comparative negligence (see the Personal Injury Law: General chapter) applies to products liability cases. If a plaintiff fails to exercise ordinary care in using the product which caused his or her injury, the amount of recovery can be reduced.
Products Liability Lawsuits Based on Negligence
Suing a manufacturer for negligence can be more difficult than a strict liability lawsuit since there is an extra step involved. A plaintiff arguing negligence must show that the product that caused the injury was defective and that the defendant was at fault (see the Personal Injury Law: General chapter for a discussion of the elements necessary to prove negligence). A strict liability case, as noted above, requires only proof that the product that caused the injury was defective.
One reason that a plaintiff may want to bring a negligence action in lieu of or in addition to a strict liability action is that he or she may have considerable evidence of the defendant's fault. A jury persuaded of a defendant's fault may be more apt to award higher damages, perhaps even punitive damages.
Products Liability Lawsuits Based on Breach of Warranty
Whenever a person purchases a product, a contract has been formed. Sometimes that contract will include express warranties; it will almost always include implied warranties. An express warranty arises when a manufacturer makes some affirmation or promise about a product which is relied upon by the buyer. The terms of an express warranty are whatever is agreed to by the parties. An implied warranty is a warranty which is implied by Florida law on the sale of goods. Under Florida's implied warranty, all goods (broadly defined as tangible things which are moveable) sold must be generally fit for their intended purpose. If a product is not generally fit for its intended purpose or if it does not meet the terms of its express warranty and a person is injured by the product, that person may sue the manufacturer for breach of warranty.
Unlike negligence, breach of warranty lawsuits do not involve proof of fault. Instead, a plaintiff must show evidence of a product's failure to meet the terms of either its express or implied warranty (this evidence will be similar to the "defective product" evidence necessary in a strict liability or negligence case). One characteristic unique to breach of warranty lawsuits is the possibility of recovery for economic loss. Whereas strict liability and negligence product liability lawsuits can recover compensatory and punitive damages related to the plaintiff's injury, they cannot recover the costs of repairing or replacing the defective product. A plaintiff in a breach of warranty lawsuit may recover such costs, in addition to compensatory or punitive damages.
Products Liability Generally
The principal purpose of products liability litigation is to compensate persons injured by defective products or products in breach of warranty. But products liability litigation also serves an important public policy interest. It serves as a means for society to collectively decide how safe manufacturers ought to make products that consumers use everyday. The application of strict liability in product liability cases demonstrates American society's changing attitudes concerning product-related injury. For the most part, manufacturer's are now under a duty to prevent injury. They are required to use better materials, include more safety features, and provide more warnings of a product's possible dangers. This is a far cry from the law of products liability half a century ago. What attitudes Americans will have toward product safety in the future remains to be seen, but one hopes that the trend toward safer products will continue.