UK PRODUCT LIABILITY CLAIMS

Our specialist solicitors deal with all legal issues relating to product liability claims for personal injury caused as a result of defective commercial installations, consumer goods, domestic equipment, motor vehicles, food products, pharmaceuticals and bio-medical devices. Our solicitors are all members of the Law Society panel of personal injury experts and will deal with initial investigation of the product in question, advice on the law, High Court and County Court litigation or arbitration proceedings and settlement of damages.

Our solicitors use the no win no fee scheme and offer free advice without any further obligation. Our claims are always risk free and we do not ask you to pay anything as the case proceeds. Compensation is paid in full with no deductions. Just use the helpline or complete and send the contact form for expert advice.

To succeed in product liability claims it is no longer necessary to prove that there was negligence. The law also now allows anyone injured by a defective product to make a claim whether or not the faulty goods were sold directly to them.

Products are defective if the safety of the goods is below that which consumers are entitled to reasonably expect. Claims for compensation for injury caused by defective products usually result from defective design, defective manufacture, defective warnings and negligent surveillance in failing to warn consumers of defects discovered after sale. Goods do not become defective merely because an updated safer version becomes available on the market and poor quality of manufacture does not necessarily mean that goods are defective. In deciding if goods are defective a court considers the marketing of the item, instructions and warnings and the purpose for which the product was intended to be used by the manufacturer or may reasonably have been expected to be used when the item was supplied.

Claims for defective pharmaceutical products or bio-medical devices have additional specific legislation designed to protect the consumer. This class of products is controlled by EC law and by the Medicines Act 1968 which regulates manufacture, marketing, distribution, sale and supply of pharmaceutical products and bio-medical devices. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) deals with safety, efficacy and quality of medicinal products and imposes controls on clinical trials, advertising claims, quality control and the supply of imports.

Defective pharmaceutical drugss or bio-medical devices often give rise to thousands of potential product liability claims. It is not unusual for many victims to come together and take legal proceedings together in a ‘multi-party action’. Individuals can pursue their own claim through the courts but a multi-party action is the most efficient and economic way of dealing with this type of claim as all of the common evidence goes before a single judge thereby ensuring that legal costs are diminished when compared with a large number of individual court actions.

If you would like free legal advice on a claim for personal injury caused by a defective product just complete and send the contact form or use the helpline and a solicitor will give free advice without any further obligation