The Statute of Repose: The Product Time Bar That Kills Claims Early
A statute of repose can extinguish a product claim before your client is even hurt. Here is how repose differs from limitations, why state…
Category
Product Liability
Strict liability, recall reporting
Successor Liability When the Manufacturer Is Already Gone
The company that built the defective machine dissolved years ago, but a buyer took its assets and kept selling under the same brand. Here i…
The Heeding Presumption and the Warning-Defect Causation Gap
Warning cases die on causation. The heeding presumption fills the gap by presuming a plaintiff would have followed an adequate warning, but…
Crashworthiness and the Enhanced-Injury Second Collision
The manufacturer's duty is not to prevent the crash but to avoid aggravating the injury. Building the enhanced-injury case, from Larsen to…
The Component-Parts Doctrine and When the Supplier Stays In
The component-parts doctrine sends generic suppliers home, but two exceptions keep the right defendant in. Here is how to plead and prove t…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
Building Design-Defect Cases After Sullivan v. Werner
Design-defect cases turn on the product itself. A working look at the risk-utility and consumer-expectation tests, what Sullivan v. Werner…