Product Warning Labels and Protection Against Liability Lawsuits We have all purchased a new consumer product with several labels, stickers, and product inserts containing warnings, disclaimers and oversimplified directions. The warnings can actually be humorous at times as illustrated in the following examples: · On Sears hair dryer: Do not use while sleeping · On Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding: Product will be hot after heating. · On Rowenta Iron: Do not iron clothes on body. · On Nytol (a sleep aid): Warning: May cause drowsiness. · On a Swedish chainsaw: Do no attempt to stop chainsaw with your hands. (http://www.tagmag.com/spam) Obviously, with a little common sense, your average consumer can avoid the injuries that the above statements are attempting to warn against. One can argue that these warnings provide protection to the manufacturers against lawsuits based upon personal injury. There are many infamous cases where damages were awarded to consumers due to a personal injury resulting from what is claimed to be negligence, failure to warn or a product defect. According to public opinion, some of these lawsuits are frivolous and are causing the decline of our civil justice system. An examination of cases against tobacco companies will provide us with some conflicting information regarding product warning labels. Do they provide manufacturers with adequate protection against this type of lawsuit? By law, product manufacturers are responsible to give a reasonable warning when the product they manufacture poses a foreseeable risk of injury or harm. Courts use the following factors to consider a manufacturer's duty to warn: "the magnitude or severity of the likely harm, the ... ... middle of paper ... ...n when the manufacturer goes to great length to warn consumers against possible hazards of the product, these warnings are not always sufficient protection from failure-to-warn lawsuits. The manner in which each lawsuit is defended against can also provide a deterrent against such suits in the future. Bibliography: Works Cited Mallor, Jane and A. James Barnes, Thomas Bowers, Michael Phillips, and Arlen Langvardt. Business Law and the Regulatory Environment. Boston, MA: Irwin McGraw-Hill, 1998. "Are warnings good enough?" U.S. News & World Report 8 April 1991: v110 n3 p55 Zegart, Dan. "Breathing fire on tobacco." The Nation 28 August 1995: v261 n6 p193 Siegfried, Willis A. "Defending Against Failure-to-Warn Lawsuits." Engineering and the Law 20 August 1998 www.tagmag.com/spam www.cnn.com
Stirling Bridge had been a thriving power tool business for over 100 years. The company had sold and distributed power tools and equipment all over the U.S., Europe, and third world countries. Recently one of Stirling Bridge’s top selling products, the Braveheart power tool line, came under attack when consumer agencies conducted research and found many consumers who purchased the power tools were experiencing significant harm and personal injury after use. Stirling Bridge (STIRLING BRIDGE) had identified potential safety concerns with their power tools and hired an independent research company to investigate why consumers were being injured using their power tools, well before the company came under the attack of public agencies.
Once a product is found to be malfunctioning with the potential of causing injury or death to a consumer, is when a Product- Harm Crisis has occurred. For instance, there are a few categorized instances that can define a Product- Harm Crisis. For example, natural disaster, workplace violence, rumors, malevolence, challenges, technical errors and, human error (W. T. Coombs, 2012) are just a few examples of crisis. Regardless of the threat, a crisis can indiscriminately post a substantial risk to a company’s reputation, credibility, consumer trust and financial future.
Scripto-Tokai Corp maintained that the Aim N Flame lighter was an alternative source of fire that was safer than a match. Calles correspondingly acknowledged that she was aware of the danger existent from lighters in the hands of children. Furthermore, Scripto-Tokai Corp admitted that they had been defendants in several suits for comparable injuries under similar circumstances. In addition to the consumer expectation test, the courts can engage in a risk- utility analysis to determine whether the risk of harm from the product as designed outweighs its utility to the user (Clarkson, Miller, and Cross, p.146). Under the risk-utility test, a plaintiff may prevail in a strict liability design-defect case if he or she demonstrates that the magnitude of the danger outweighs the utility of the product, as designed (Lamkin v. Towner, 1990). Due to the fact that there is an open and obvious nature of danger associated with the Aim N Flame lighter, it cannot be classified as an unreasonably dangerous product according to the risk-utility test. Therefore the courts should rule in favor of Scripto-Tokai Corp as the lighter is not an unreasonably dangerous product and there was not sufficient evidence to prove that Scripto-Tokai did not utilize reasonable care in the design of lighter. In the actual case on which this problem is based, a summary judgment
In this case, the consequences of secrecy approach fits well. The company knew about the problem before the product came out into the market. However, they did not make it public. Of course, it would have been hard to say that this car might get on fire while you are driving because of the some design problem. Therefore, the company kept it secret from the public. As a result, it was too late when the problem found out and some people have already lost their
In the case of Kolchek suing to recover for Litisha’s injuries, she can sure under the negligence liability. Every product should be fully tested in every way possible to see if the product functions correctly and will it injure individuals. There should not have been a whole that is not covered. Like stated in our book The Legal Environment of Business, “if a manufacture fails to exercise “due care” to make a product safe, a person who is injured by the product may sue the manufacture for negligence”. Kolchek could sue the manufacture. In this case which is Great Lakes spa. Porter was just a company that was selling the product. Great Lakes spa should have taken the initiative to examine their products throughly before putting it out on the make for individuals to buy. Like in our book The Legal Environment of Business stated, “A manufacture, seller, or lesser is liable for failure to exercise due care to any person who sustains an injury proximately caused by a negligently made (defective) product.”
...n electrical equipment because the labels are there for the consumer's own safety. Warning labels should be available in all foods so that consumers can get an accurate description of what they are buying and how it will affect their health, whether positively or negatively.
Adding to the body of research, Siomkos and Kurzbard (1994) noted that Product-Harm crisis can be defined as well publicized events in which products are found to be defective or dangerous. There can be many outcomes that may result from Product-Harm crisis. For example there might be product recalls which may have a negative impact on the organization image, reputation, sales and bottom line. Whatever the outcome of the crisis there will be some impact to the organization so it is important to examine the factors that contribute to Product-Harm crisis.
In Lee Ann Fisher Baron’s “Junk Science,” she claims that the “food industry with the help of federal regulators” sometimes use “[a science that] bypasses [the] system of peer review. Presented directly to the public by…‘experts’ or ‘activists,’ often with little or no supporting evidence, this ‘junk science’ undermines the ability…[for] everyday consumers to make rational decisions” (921). Yet Americans still have a lot of faith in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). According to a 2013 Pew Research study, 65% of Americans are “very favorable” or “mostly favorable” of the FDA. When it comes to what people put in their bodies, the FDA has a moral obligation to be truthful and transparent. The bottom line of the FDA’s myriad of responsibilities is to help protect the health of Americans. Deciding what to eat is a critical part of living healthily, and consumers must be able to trust that this massive government agency is informing them properly of the contents of food. While the FDA does an excellent job in many areas, it has flaws in other areas. One of its flaws is allowing the food industry to print food labels that are deceptive, unclear, or simply not true (known as misbranding). This is quite the hot topic because a Google search for “Should I trust food labels” returns well over 20 million results, many of which are blog posts from online writers begging their readers not to trust food labels. HowStuffWorks, a division of Discovery Communications, published an online article whose author claims that “[the food industry] will put what they want on labels. They know the game….” While the food industry is partially at blame for misbranding, the FDA is allowing it to happen. If a mother tells her children that it is oka...
Enforcement of product safety would be expensive, though it could prove to be more necessary than on...
There was strong competition for Ford in the American small-car market from Volkswagen and several Japanese companies in the 1960’s. To fight the competition, Ford rushed its newest car the Pinto into production in much less time than is usually required to develop a car. The regular time to produce an automobile is 43 months but Ford took 25 months only (Satchi, L., 2005). Although Ford had access to a new design which would decrease the possibility of the Ford Pinto from exploding, the company chose not to implement the design, which would have cost $11 per car, even though it had done an analysis showing that the new design would result in 180 less deaths. The company defended itself on the grounds that it used the accepted risk-benefit analysis to determine if the monetary costs of making the change were greater than the societal benefit. Based on the numbers Ford used, the cost would have been $137 million versus the $49.5 million price tag put on the deaths, injuries, and car damages, and thus Ford felt justified not implementing the design change (Legget, C., 1999). This was a ground breaking decision because it failed to use the common standard of whether a harm was a result of an action on trespass or harm as a result of an action on the case (Ferguson, A., 2005).
This paper will explain a product that is recalled, the date it was recalled and the reason it was recalled. It also will explain weather the manufacturer is liable for negligence. It will also explain the relationship with the product that is recalled when it comes to the duty of care, standard of care, breach of the duty of care, Actual injury, proximate injury, and also the defensed to negligence.
The Consumer Product Safety Act states that any company that receives numerous complaints about a products defects must report these claims to the CPSA. According to the CPSA reporting responsibilities belong to manufacturers, importers, distributors and retailers of consumer products. Each is required to notify the Commission if it obtains information which reasonably supports the conclusion that a product fails to comply with a consumer product safety standard or banning regulation. Also if the product contains a defect which could create a substantial product hazard, creates an unreasonable risk of serious injury, or death to the consumer.
The Ethical Life Cycle of an Innovation (2002) clearly identifies four consumer rights of safety which are important to organizational ethics. Understanding that organizations producing products have the initial responsibility to identify safety problems is vital. These concerns are to be derived from the basics of the product’s use and common sence as it apply to the dangers perceived from this product. This, in of itself, has numberous possibilities to which the Consumer’s Relative Incompetence (CRI) must be applied. The linking of product safety directly to the CRI has permanently been ...
...decision taken by such manufacturers. You can be heavily penalized, if you are caught in any such activity.
That is the reason that it is highly susceptible to a huge number of laws and regulations in order to ensure the health and safety of the consumers.