product liability

Florida product liability lawyer Florida product liability claims can be the subject of complex legal battles, often owing to the difficulty in establishing the chain of commerce.

Under Florida law, when a product has been defectively designed or manufactured or when there are label defects, several entities may be held strictly liable. Potentially liable entities include the manufacturer as well as any others allegedly involved in the design, manufacturing, or sale of the product.

As our Florida product liability lawyers can explain, the chain of commerce has been raised in a growing number of injury cases in recent years aiming to hold accountable large e-commerce retailers like Amazon. If a store like Home Depot sells you a defective chainsaw and it causes serious injury, the store can be held liable because of its role in the chain of commerce. However, e-commerce makes it a little tricky. It’s been the position of Amazon that the doctrine of strict products liability doesn’t apply because e-commerce platforms don’t distribute, manufacture, or sell many of the products on the site. Rather, it asserts it is merely “an online marketplace.” Amazon insists it should be the third-party sellers who are legally responsible for dangerous product injuries.

However, that argument was rejected in a California appellate decision last year – the first of its kind at the state appellate court level. Although that ruling isn’t precedential for Florida, it could be instructive in future cases.

The ruling is particularly noteworthy considering more than 360 million products are sold on Amazon Marketplace a year in the U.S. alone. Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal reported that more than 4,000 banned, unsafe and mislabeled products had been sold on the company’s platform. These products ranged from toys with choking hazards to defective motorcycle helmets. Dozens have resulted in federal lawsuits alleging serious injury and death. Continue reading

Nothing is more devastating than the wrongful death of a child. As a longtime Naples accident lawyer, I’m unfortunately all-too-aware that motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of child deaths in the U.S. I also know most of these deaths are preventable – not only by the drivers involved but sometimes by auto manufacturers who fail to ensure the vehicles they sell are safe.

Car accident lawsuits against the makers of vehicles are a type of product liability claim. These are injury lawsuits, but rather requiring proof of negligence (the standard in a typical car accident case), Florida product liability claims are generally pursued under a legal theory called strict liability. This requires plaintiffs to show the product was unreasonably dangerous as designed or because of a manufacturing defect or because the warnings/instructions were insufficient.