Practice areas / Defective products
Defective and dangerous product claims
dangerous designs, manufacturing defects, and missing warnings
A product claim examines whether an unsafe design, manufacturing defect, or inadequate warning caused the injury, and which companies in the distribution chain may be responsible.
These cases require technical analysis and preservation of the product in its post-incident condition. Repair, salvage, or disposal can destroy essential evidence.
What Florida law actually says
A product can be defective in its manufacture, its design or its warnings. 3 separate theories, 3 separate proofs.
Florida recognizes strict liability for defective products, reaching manufacturers and, in narrower circumstances, others in the chain of distribution.
Older products carry their own deadline problem. Florida's repose period can bar claims on products past their expected useful life, with exceptions that have to be checked early.
What gets secured first
The product preserved, unaltered, before an insurer, employer or repair shop fixes the case away
Recall history, prior incident reports and other claims involving the same model
Whether a guard, interlock or shutoff was removed, defeated or never installed at the factory
The purchase chain, because who sold it and who maintained it decides who can be reached
Asked in the first phone call
I was hurt by a machine at work. Workers comp says that is all I get.
Comp is generally the exclusive remedy against your employer in Florida, but it does not bar a claim against the company that made the defective equipment. That third-party claim is frequently where the real recovery is.
The insurance company already took the car.
Call before anything else happens to it. A salvage yard is a countdown clock. A written preservation demand today can be the difference between a product case and no case.
Nothing on this site is legal advice. The deadlines and standards described here are general, they have exceptions, and they change. Florida rewrote several of them in 2023. Do not use this site to calculate your own deadline.