In Alabama, if you have suffered an injury due to some defect of a given product, then you may be entitled to recover damages. In the motor vehicle context, product liability suits are rather common. For example, product liability claims are often asserted by drivers and passengers who suffer substantial injuries due to some unexpected failure of their seatbelt, airbag, tires, or other aspects of their motor vehicle.

If you have been injured due to a defective product, Alabama law may entitle you to sue and recover damages as compensation for your various injuries. It’s important that you consult with a qualified Alabama product defect attorney as soon as possible to ensure that your claims are preserved and litigated in a timely manner.

Product liability claims in Alabama may proceed under theories of strict liability, negligence, and breach of warranty. Each requires that the product have been in a defective condition at the time of the injury, however, and that the defect at-issue have caused your injuries. If the product caused injuries, but was not defective, then you cannot pursue litigation against the defendant on such basis. Similarly, if the product was defective, but the defect did not actually cause your injuries, then you will not succeed in litigation.  Your injuries must be attributable to the defect itself.

Product liability plaintiffs are often confused by the terminology: defect. What constitutes a defect can be a rather murky, difficult question. To help clarify how product liability litigation actually works, let’s take a closer look at the “defect” consideration.

Unreasonably Dangerous Products

Products are defined as “defective” when they are unreasonably dangerous for their intended purposes. In the state of Alabama, this determination is fact-based and depends on the expectation of the ultimate consumer. If the product is in a condition that renders it unreasonably dangerous for the intended use and expectations of the ultimate consumer, then it will likely be deemed “defective.”

The intended purpose of the product is critical to understanding whether it is defective. If you remove a seatbelt from your car and use it as a pulley rope, for example, then in all likelihood, the dangers of such use cannot be attributed to some defect of the seatbelt itself.

All this legal terminology can be somewhat difficult to make sense of — for those unfamiliar with product defect litigation — so let’s briefly work through an example that one might encounter in the motor vehicle context.

Suppose that you are injured in an accident where the airbag simply did not deploy. The airbag was designed to deploy in precisely the conditions that you were exposed to, and had it properly deployed, you would not have suffered significant injuries. The airbag could be deemed defective as it was unreasonably dangerous for its intended use case — it failed to deploy correctly, thus exposing you to a heightened risk of injury. Further, in the strict liability context, you would not have to show that the defect was negligently created. To recover damages, you would simply have to show that there was a defect and that you were injured as a result.