Product Liability Attorneys in Texas
Dealing with unforeseen product liability injuries can be a distressing and trying experience. As consumers, we should be able to trust the manufacturers and sellers of commercial products, but, unfortunately, these businesses are often willing to sacrifice consumer safety in order to increase their profits.
If you or a family member has been injured by a defective product, then you may have a potential case against the manufacturer or seller of that product. Our highly skilled team of product liability attorneys understands these types of cases, and we know how to both negotiate for a settlement and litigate if needed.
Our Product Liability Attorneys Have the Experience You Need to Find Success
At the Law Office of Bobby Garcia, we have an experienced team that focuses on product liability cases, and we’d be proud to represent you in your fight for justice and compensation. We have helped victims win compensation for injuries caused by the following products:
Paraquat
Round-Up
3M Combat Earplugs
Asbestos
The stress of facing off against a massive corporation and its endless resources can be daunting, but an experienced product liability attorney can show you how to move forward, step by step.
How Do I Know if I Have a Product Liability Case?
In general, product liability cases have a variety of components. First, the product in question must have been sold to someone by a seller who was legally required to sell a product that meets consumers’ expectations and safety. This may sound convoluted, but the primary thing to know is that you can only bring a product liability case against a seller who legally sold you the product.
Next, you must prove the product is defective in one of the following ways:
Design defect — a design defect occurs when a manufacturer/seller fails to design a safe product in the first place, often due to insufficient testing.
Manufacturing defect — a manufacturing defect occurs when a product is impure, faulty, mislabeled, or otherwise different from its design.
Unforeseen defect — in many cases, proving design or manufacturing defects is virtually impossible. In these situations, the law may hold a seller liable if their product harmed a consumer who used that product as intended.
After you’ve proven that the product was defective and that the seller either knew or should have known about the potential defect, then you will need to prove that the defective product is what caused your injury.
Sellers are likely to argue that you were injured in some other way unless you can provide sufficient medical documentation and other evidence. An experienced product liability attorney can help you find the resources you need.
What Damages Are Available for an Product Liability Claim?
Under the law, when a person or business causes you injury, then you have the right to seek compensation for that injury and all associated damages. These losses extend far beyond medical bills; defective product injuries can be relatively minor or they can lead to life-long suffering.
Because of this, the court recognizes several different types of damages that a product liability victim may have suffered.
Economic
Economic damages are the most straightforward and, generally, can be proven using receipts, documentation, and other hard evidence. Among economic damages include:
Medical bills
Lost wages
Disability
Therapy bills
Moving costs
Transportation costs
Non-Economic
Non-economic damages are more abstract and they don’t come with a specific price tag. Instead, non-economic losses are often awarded in a lump sum figure based on the economic damages.
In order to make that calculation, the court will take into account if you’ve suffered any of the following losses:
Pain and suffering
Disfigurement
Mental illnesses, including PTSD
Lost companionship of a deceased loved one
Reduced quality of life
Punitive
Punitive damages are meant to serve as both a punishment for malicious or careless behavior and a deterrent against future offenses by both the defendant and other similar sellers. Proving that the seller knowingly sold you a defective product can increase your likelihood of winning punitive damages.
Wrongful Death
Wrongful death suits are brought by the survivors of a deceased victim, alleging that the death was caused by the defendant. These cases are meant to recognize the extreme cost that comes from losing a loved one, not just financially but emotionally, as well.
Current Cases
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Possible Injury: Parkinson's Disease
Since 1964, Paraquat has been used in the U.S. to kill broadleaf weeds and grasses before the planting or emergence of crops; used to control weeds in orchards; and used to desiccate (dry) plants before harvest.
Paraquat is typically sold to users in the form of liquid concentrates, but it can also be found in the form of granular solids. In either case, the chemical is designed to be diluted with water before or after being loaded into the tank of a sprayer. Using the sprayer, farmers are able to target the weeds with the chemical application.
The USGS website shows Paraquat is used to spray the following crops: corn, soybeans, cotton, orchards or vineyard grapes, alfalfa, wheat, pasture for animals or hay, vegetables, fruit, rice, and other crops
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Possible Injury: Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma
Farmers have relied upon glyphosate-based herbicides, like Round-Up, to kill unwanted vegetation for more than four decades. However, the chemical’s use sparked a heated debate in 2015 when the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded that it was “probably carcinogenic,” the same category that includes things like raw meat.
This decision followed previous conclusions by research agencies, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a cancer risk to humans.
There’s no question that the research around this small molecule has become highly politicized. Environmental activists have claimed that exposure is linked to everything from cancer to celiac disease and even autism. On the other hand, industry-backed reviews have insisted the pesticide has no harmful effects whatsoever.
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Possible Injury: Permanent Hearing Loss
In a startling settlement in July 2018, the 3M corporation agreed to pay $9.1 million in a False Claims Act lawsuit to settle allegations that it knowingly supplied the United States military with defective earplugs.
Service members and combat veterans have reported side effects including the following:
Hearing loss
Tinnitus (ringing in the ears)
Permanent hearing damage
Deafness
The lawsuit, brought on behalf of the government, alleges that the company covered up the fact that the dual-ended earplugs could slightly loosen, allowing hearing damage to occur.
Thousands of service members were supplied the defective 3M Combat Arms Earplugs from 2003 to 2015. Description text goes here
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Possible Injury: Mesothelioma/ Lung Cancer
Asbestos is the generic term for a group of naturally occurring fibrous minerals with high tensile strength, flexibility, and resistance to thermal, chemical, and electrical conditions.
Asbestos is used in the manufacturing process for the following products:
Heat-resistant clothing
Automotive brake and clutch linings
Floor tiles
Roofing felts
Ceiling tiles
Asbestos-cement pipe and sheet
Fire-resistant drywall
sbestos is also present in pipe and boiler insulation materials, and in sprayed-on or troweled-on surfacing materials placed on walls, ceilings, beams, crawlspaces, and between walls.
Asbestos fibers enter the body through inhalation or ingestion and become embedded in the tissues of the respiratory or digestive systems. Asbestos exposure can cause numerous diseases, including lung cancer, mesothelioma, gastrointestinal cancer, and asbestosis, an emphysema-like condition. The symptoms of these diseases generally do not appear for 20 or more years after initial exposure.Item description