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Product Liability
Southern Illinois and Missouri Product Liability Lawyers
Product liability laws cover a wide range of personal injury cases, from those involving car safety features such as seat belts and dangerous industrial equipment to medical devices that damage your health. At the law firm of Weilmuenster & Keck, P.C. in Belleville, Illinois, our lawyers represent the victims of all types of dangerous and defective products, including injuries caused by drug side effects.
The companies that design and manufacture products, as well as the stores that sell them, have a duty to protect consumers from injuries caused by product defects. There are three types of defects:
- Design defects. In a design defect, the injury is caused by an inherent flaw in the design of the product. In most cases, a safer alternative was available to the manufacturer.
- Manufacturing defects. In these cases, the product had a safe design but a manufacturing mistake resulted in a defective unit being sold.
- Defective warnings. If a danger cannot be designed out of a product, then the manufacturer has a duty to warn consumers.
Our lawyers represent victims of product injuries on a contingency fee basis, meaning we are paid only if we obtain compensation for you.
A classic auto safety defect case is that of the Ford Pinto. For 13 cents per vehicle, the manufacturer could have installed a safety valve to prevent gas tanks from exploding in rear-end collisions. However, company documents recovered by attorneys representing accident victims showed that Ford chose not to install the safety valves after determining that it would be less costly to settle wrongful death claims arising from the defect than to fix the vehicles.
Free Attorney Consultation
To speak with an attorney about your product liability case, please call 618-257-2222 or fill out the contact form on this Web site. Our attorneys represent people injured by defective products throughout Southern Illinois and the greater metropolitan St. Louis, Missouri, area.