Product Liability

Published on: March 22, 2016

Ford Motor Company Recalls Roughly 400,000 Vehicles Following Airbag-Related Fatality

CBS news recently issued a news story stating that major car manufacturer Ford Motor Company has initiated a recall of roughly 391,000 of its Ford Ranger truck vehicles after a man riding in one of the vehicles died when one of the truck’s airbags exploded. The recall covers Ranger trucks manufactured between the years of 2004 and 2006.

According to authorities familiar with the accident, the decedent was driving his Ford Ranger pickup when he collided with a cow that had found its way onto the road. After making contact with the cow, the man lost control of the vehicle and collided into a fence. It is unclear whether the airbag deployed when the truck collided with the cow or when the truck collided with the fence. Reports prepared about the incident indicate that the man died as a result of metal shrapnel impaling his neck and that the shrapnel was created when the activator in the airbag exploded instead of inflating the device. The investigation also suggested that but for the defective airbag device the collision would have been moderate and unlikely to have resulted in the driver’s death.

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Published on: March 16, 2016

Jury Awards Ohio Plaintiffs $72 Million in Talcum Powder Product Liability Lawsuit

By Moll Law Group

Johnson & Johnson, a global manufacturer of household products, was recently ordered to pay a $72 million judgment to the family of a woman who died from ovarian cancer. The decedent’s illness was linked to her use of Johnson & Johnson’s Shower to Shower and Baby Powder products over a number of decades.

The jury’s verdict included $10 million in compensatory damages and a whopping $62 million in punitive damages, which is a special type of damages designed to punish a defendant for reckless, wanton, or willful conduct while also serving as a deterrent to other companies and actors.

The lawsuit alleged that the company failed to provide warnings about the potential risk of developing cancer associated with its talcum powder products in order to increase product sales and profits. According to evidence offered at trial, Johnson & Johnson knew that its talcum powder products posed the risk of cancer as early as the 1980s, but it failed to disclose this information to the general public or regulatory officials.

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Published on: March 2, 2016

FDA Questions Safety of Cannabidiol (CBD) Products

By Moll Law Group

It seems like there is a never-ending stream of dietary health supplements hitting the market each day. While many of these supplements are considered hot trends or major miracle breakthroughs that can remedy a variety of ailments, they can also pose serious health risks to consumers. There have also been too many major news events involving dietary supplements that were so dangerous they had to be removed from the market entirely.

Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued eight separate warning letters to companies that manufacture products containing cannabidiol (CBD) that are intended for use as dietary supplements. According to these warning letters, the companies’ claims that the CBD-containing products can help treat certain conditions like cancer, lupus, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other ailments were not appropriately verified by the FDA.

CBD products are non-narcotics containing ingredients derived from cannabis sativa, a plant that is also used to make the narcotic drug marijuana. Although some states have decriminalized and even legalized marijuana consumption, it remains illegal on the federal level.

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Published on: February 16, 2016

Senators, CPSC Launch Investigation into Potential Cancer-Causing Properties of Rubber Sports Turf

By Moll Law Group

There are hundreds of thousands of products in our modern, consumer-driven world. While many of these are products that we may select and purchase of our own accord, there are numerous other products that we are forced to encounter on a daily basis. Regardless of the circumstance, products can pose a serious danger to the health and safety of you and your family.

Every state has adopted a consumer protection law that allows consumers who suffer injuries due to a dangerous product to bring a claim against the manufacturer and other potentially liable parties. Although there are some differences in these laws, they generally impose the same requirements on plaintiffs seeking compensation from a product manufacturer or distributor.

In general, product makers owe the public a duty to design products that are reasonably safe and to ensure that individual products on the manufacturing line do not suffer from defects that render them unreasonably dangerous. The product liability laws also impose liability against defendants who fail to provide an adequate warning about certain dangers that a product may pose, or who fail to provide sufficient instructions for using the product in a safe and reasonable manner.

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Published on: January 22, 2016

Consumer Product Safety Commission May Provide Employees with Power to Vote on Voluntary Guidelines

By Moll Law Group

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (“CPSC”) is preparing to vote on whether to enact a proposed rule that would permit the Commission’s employees to participate in the numerous committees that create CPSC’s voluntary guidelines. The rule would also vest members with the ability to vote as committee members, while also authorizing them to lead committees subject to approval from the CPSC’s executive director.

The proposed rule was developed in response to a recommendation from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (“GAO”), urging the Commission to investigate the feasibility of taking a more engaged and active role in the creation of voluntary standards.

The CPSC develops voluntary standards, which create safety provisions geared toward identifying the countless consumer hazards that many products pose, including goods commonly found in schools, parks, playgrounds, homes, and other prominent locations. Due to the complexity of these guidelines, a great deal of work goes into their development, revision, final proposal, and enactment. Three committees were created within the CPSC to help create standards: the American Society for Testing and Materials, the American National Standards Institute, and Underwriters Laboratories, Inc.

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Published on: January 18, 2016

Harvard Study Suggests E-Cigarettes Contain Harmful Chemical Diacetyl

By Moll Law Group

E-cigarettes, or vapor cigarettes, have become an incredibly popular alternative to traditional tobacco products, with over 250 different companies currently selling the devices. Many tout the electronic apparatuses as a better alternative to using traditional tobacco products because they produce less odor, cost less than traditional tobacco products, and are less dangerous when it comes to creating fire hazards.

Despite these alleged benefits, some researchers have dug into whether the new alternative provides fewer health risks than using traditional tobacco products. Last month, Harvard University researchers produced results from a study in which they examined a few different types of flavored electronic cigarette products. The study involved testing over 50 varieties of flavored products and liquids marketed by the most common brands. The tests looked for a variety of chemicals, including diacetyl, acetoin, and two varieties of pentanedione.

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Published on: January 4, 2016

Volkswagen Faces More Recalls Over Faulty Emissions Detection Device

By Moll Law Group

When it comes to owning and operating a vehicle, one of the biggest nightmares you can experience is a recall, which indicates that something is wrong with a significant number of a manufacturer’s vehicles. In 2014 alone, there were over 500 vehicle recalls that encompassed over 50 million automobiles. This is an overwhelming amount of information and can seem daunting to many vehicle owners.

Although some recalls are relatively harmless, in many cases these recalls can affect critical components of a vehicle, including the brakes, steering wheel, and engine components. Earlier this year, Japanese auto parts maker Takata found itself in hot water when major defects were discovered in its air bag devices, leading to a massive recall. While some recalls are minor and can be fixed easily at a local car dealer, others are far more extensive and can lead to severe injuries or even death.

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Published on: December 24, 2015

Supreme Court Overturns California Court’s Holding that Class Action Arbitration Waiver is Unenforceable

By Moll Law Group

In the recent case of DirectTV, Inc. v. Imburgia, the Supreme Court issued a key decision interpreting the scope of arbitration agreements under the Federal Arbitration Act. In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs sought to enforce a class action arbitration waiver, which included a provision providing that the entire clause was not enforceable if the law in the signing party’s state dictated that class action waivers are not enforceable. When the defendants executed the contract, California law stated that class action waivers were not enforceable. The lower court ultimately ruled that the class action arbitration waiver was unconscionable and refused to enforce it.

In reaching this holding, the California courts relied on the language in the contract that said “the law of your state,” finding that this allowed the court a basis for avoiding preemption pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act. The lower court determined that Sections 1751 and 1781 of the California Remedies Act required the provision to be deemed invalid, notwithstanding the application of the Federal Arbitration Act.

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Published on: December 17, 2015

Delaware Court Reduces Transvaginal Mesh Product Liability Claim Verdict from $25 Million to $10 Million

By Moll Law Group

There have been thousands of lawsuits brought in recent years against the manufacturers of transvaginal mesh (TVM) products, which have been identified as causing severe, painful, and often permanent injuries. Multiple medical device manufacturers have developed and marketed these devices, which are designed to treat pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence. What the patients soon realized, however, is that the device caused severe internal damage, intense pain, and other related injuries.

To recover damages against a medical device manufacturer, the plaintiff must show that the defendant’s device bears an unreasonably dangerous design or that the device possesses a defect that occurred during the manufacturing process that renders the device unreasonably dangerous. The overwhelming majority of plaintiffs bringing claims against TVM manufacturers claim that the devices are unreasonably dangerous.

Once the U.S. Food and Drug Administration started receiving complaints about the health effects of these devices, it launched an investigation into multiple brands of TVM products, issuing warning letters to some and ordering others to perform post-market studies on the TVM products’ safety.

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Published on: December 15, 2015

Jury Awards $11 Million to Bellweather Plaintiff In Wright Medical Defective Hip Implant Litigation

By Moll Law Group

One of the first bellweather trials in the Wright Medical metallic hip implant litigation went to trial earlier this month, and the jury returned a verdict of $1 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages. A bellweather trial is part of a multi-district litigation (MDL). Like a lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit, the bellweather plaintiff’s claim is used to test the legitimacy of the plaintiffs’ claims and to help the parties get some picture of what common issues of law, fact, and damages might look like for the other claimants in the MDL.

In a product liability action, the plaintiff needs to prove that the defendant’s product was defective. This can be done in two ways: by showing that the product bears an unreasonably dangerous design, or by showing that the particular device that the plaintiff received suffered a manufacturing defect that rendered the product unreasonably dangerous.

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