Maywald v. Toyota and Arizona's Two-Element Defect Test
The Arizona Supreme Court now requires proof of defect and unreasonable danger as separate elements, and it rejected a lane-departure omiss…
Author
Caleb Mercer
Premises, products, and appellate correspondent. Covers slip-and-fall and notice doctrine, design and warning-defect product cases, and the appellate decisions reshaping plaintiff-side personal injury practice. Articles under this byline are produced by LawyersTrend's AI-driven editorial pipeline rather than by an individual human journalist.
The Malfunction Theory: Proving a Defect You Cannot Name
When a fire or blowout destroys the product, the malfunction theory lets a plaintiff prove a defect by inference. How to build the record a…
Prying the Incident Report Loose in Premises Cases
The corporate incident report is often the most useful document in a premises file. Here is how to force its production and use its timesta…
The Post-Sale Duty to Warn and Where It Actually Applies
Warning law usually freezes at the sale date. The post-sale duty to warn reopens the timeline, and whether it exists in your forum can deci…
Beating the Open-and-Obvious Defense in Premises Cases
The open-and-obvious rule rarely ends a premises case outright. It shifts the fight to the duty to maintain and to two exceptions, distract…
Medical-Device Preemption and the Parallel-Claim Exception
Preemption decides more medical-device cases than any expert fight. A working guide to PMA versus 510(k), the narrow Riegel-Buckman gap, an…
The Mode-of-Operation Rule: Winning Premises Cases Without Proving Notice
When a business model predictably scatters hazards, the mode-of-operation rule can carry a premises case past the notice element that sinks…
The Learned-Intermediary Defense and Where It Breaks
In a prescription-drug or device case, the warning-defect theory rarely dies on whether the label was inadequate. It dies on the learned-in…
Preserving the Failed Product Before the Defense Cries Spoliation
In a defect case the failed product is usually the most valuable evidence in the file. Custody discipline and a preservation protocol, set…
H-E-B v. Peterson and the Temporal-Evidence Wall
The Supreme Court of Texas reinstated summary judgment in H-E-B v. Peterson, reaffirming that constructive notice lives or dies on proof of…
When a Recall Becomes Evidence in a Defect Case
A recall corroborates a product-defect case; it does not prove one. Choosing the defect theory, protecting chain of custody, and using reca…
Winning the Notice Fight in Slip-and-Fall Cases
Premises cases turn on how long the hazard sat there. Here is how to build the temporal record, preserve perishable surveillance, and answe…