When you get hurt in an accident at home or on the road, your first priority should always be your own health and safety and that of everyone around you. If your child is hurt, make sure they get the medical attention they need first.
Once you’ve made sure everything is going to be OK, you can take the time to figure out what went wrong to make the injury happen. Accidents occur all the time, but sometimes they are caused by problems entirely outside our control, like defective products.
If you have indeed been injured by a defective product, you might be eligible to seek compensation for the injuries you’ve suffered from a defective product injury claim.
Gathering Evidence
With some dangerous and defective products, the defect is obvious. An object may explode, start a fire, or fail to do what it’s designed to do. Some defects, however, are not so easy to identify. If a child experiences some kind of unusual injury or rash after playing with a certain toy, it’s hard to be sure why. It’s similarly difficult when a car accident is partially caused by a defect.
Whether or not the defect is obvious, it’s always worth investigating. If you believe the injury might have been caused by a specific product or tool, then you can start to build your case by collecting evidence.
Write down for yourself what happened, get statements from others, and take pictures of the scene of the accident and everything involved. The sooner you do all of this the better.
Different Kinds of Defects
In order to establish a claim and win your damages in a defective product case, you’ll have to prove that you experienced significant expenses and suffering because of the injury and that the product was defective in some way that caused the injury.
A defect could be something that went wrong in the manufacturing process or while it was being shipped. It’s possible that someone made a mistake and that the product should not have been shipped or sold in its condition.
Some errors also come from mistakes in the design. This sort of case can be harder to prove. The third kind of defect is when the problem is not necessarily in the product but in insufficient or confusing instructions or warnings. If the mistakes have been publicly acknowledged, or there are other people that have also been hurt by these same errors, your case will be much easier to win.
Finding an Attorney
The South Carolina Code of Law – Chapter 73 is set up to protect you from manufacturers and stores that sell dangerous products. When it comes to proving your claim, however, things can get more difficult.
While others may try to offer their opinions, attorneys with experience in product liability will be your best and most reliable resource to evaluate your case and help you seek your just compensation. They know how the laws work and can help you document the incident and collect the proof you need.