Product Liability

According to one consumer watchdog organization, nearly 14 million people are treated in emergency rooms each year for injuries resulting from consumer products. Children and the elderly are most vulnerable to these injuries. If you have been injured by a product you may need one of our Knoxville products liability lawyers.

Products liability is a broad category of cases that encompasses any product which causes you injury. Some of these cases are very well known from pesticides that cause cancer to baby cribs that can collapse on infants to poisonous household cleaning products or car airbags that fail to deploy.

Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-28-102 defines a “Product liability action” to include: “all actions brought for . . . personal injury, death or property damage caused by or resulting from the manufacture, construction, design, formula, preparation, assembly, testing, service, warning, instruction, marketing, packaging or labeling of any product.”

That statute further details that these claims include “all actions based upon the following theories: strict liability in tort; negligence; breach of warranty, express or implied; breach of or failure to discharge a duty to warn or instruct, whether negligent, or innocent; misrepresentation, concealment, or nondisclosure, whether negligent, or innocent; or under any other substantive legal theory in tort or contract whatsoever.”

Our Knoxville products liability attorneys have experience taking all kinds of cases.

Products liability cases have a one-year statute of limitations. In other words, you must file a lawsuit within one year of the injury or your claim is forever barred. However, with some products you might not know that the product caused your injury. Tennessee law, under Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-28-103, provides certain exceptions for the occasions in which you could not know that the product caused injury. You should call one of our Knoxville products liability lawyers as soon as you become aware of your injury. There could be many parties that we need to investigate from the retailer to the manufacturer to even the manufacturer of certain parts. This is a reason to get our Knoxville products liability attorneys involved early.

These exceptions to the statute of limitations include: “Any action against a manufacturer or seller of a product for injury to person or property caused by its defective or unreasonably dangerous condition must be brought within the period fixed by §§ 28-3-104, 28-3-105, 28-3-202 and 47-2-725, but notwithstanding any exceptions to these provisions, it must be brought within six (6) years of the date of injury, in any event, the action must be brought within ten (10) years from the date on which the product was first purchased for use or consumption, or within one (1) year after the expiration of the anticipated life of the product, whichever is the shorter, except in the case of injury to minors whose action must be brought within a period of one (1) year after attaining the age of majority, whichever occurs sooner.”

In Smith v. Detroit Marine Engr. Corp., 712 S.W.2d 472, 475 (Tenn. App. 1985) the Tennessee Court of Appeals held that for a strict products liability claim “a plaintiff need only prove that a defective condition exists in a product or that the product is unreasonably dangerous in order for liability to attach.” In other words, a manufacturer is strictly liable for an unreasonable dangerous product that has not been altered. Whether the seller or retailer is liable is a lot more complicated. Because of the complexity of the claim, our Knoxville products liability lawyers want to be involved early.

Contact the Lawyers of Brown and Roberto by phone at (865) 691-2777 for a free consultation regarding your products liability claim.