Who is Liable for Damages in an Accident Caused by a Defect?
Posted October 31st, 2024.
Categories: Blog.
When a defect or faulty product causes a car accident, it is important that the liable party is identified. Anyone involved in a collision should understand who is responsible for damages under certain circumstances. Read on and contact a Cherry Hill personal injury attorney for more information and representation.
What is Liability?
When two or more vehicles get into an accident, the drivers involved and some other parties can be held liable. Liability is the responsibility of a guilty or negligent party to pay for damages resulting from the collision.
Establishing liability in a car accident case is important because it determines who will be responsible for paying compensation to the victims or other parties. Whoever is deemed liable will have to pay to cover the other involved parties’ medical expenses, property damage, pain and suffering, loss of income, and more.
Who Can Be Held Liable for an Accident Caused by a Defect?
If a car part defect caused the car accident it can be confusing to determine who is liable. When one driver runs a red light or rear-ends another, liability is fairly obvious. However, the origins of faulty parts can be more complex to determine.
There are generally three entities that can be held liable for an accident caused by a defective part. Responsibility typically falls to the product designers, manufacturers, or distributors.
- The product designers could be liable for an accident if the product’s design is inherently dangerous. If the design team overlooked safety issues or approved a design without thoroughly testing the product and determining whether or not it is safe, they can face responsibility.
- Manufacturers could be found liable as well. If the product itself was designed perfectly but manufactured incorrectly they will face blame. They may have been negligent in their creation of the item and therefore responsible for any resulting accidents or injuries.
- Finally, if the design and manufacturing were fine but an issue occurred during distribution, the distributor could be held liable for the accident. They may have mishandled the product, improperly stored it, removed safety warnings, modified the product, or continued distributing a product knowing that it was unsafe or had been recalled.
Depending on the stage at which the product became defective, any of the above entities could be found liable and be forced to pay for damages resulting from the accident.
What is Comparative Negligence?
In New Jersey, multiple individuals or entities can be found liable for an accident using comparative negligence law. After examining the relevant information and evidence, courts will assign a percentage of fault to each party involved. This means that more than one person can be found liable for the accident.
In an accident with a defective product, the drivers, designers, manufacturers, and distributors can all be considered partially negligent for the accident and damages. The percentages that each party is assigned will determine how much, if any, they are required to pay in compensation. Speak with an experienced attorney for more information.
