Someone that has been injured while using a defective product has the legal right to file a liability claim. The claimant seeks compensation for specific damages.
Compensatory damages
There are 2 types of compensatory damages. One type covers the damage awards that grant compensation for economic losses. The other type covers the damage awards that compensate a plaintiff for noneconomic losses.
What are some examples of economic losses?
An injured victim loses money when he or she needs to pay for a doctor visit, to pay for a scheduled treatment, to pay for prescribed medication. Other examples of medical expenses take the form of money paid to a physical therapist or funds used to pay for special medical equipment, as well as possible adaptations to the home.
If a treating physician has told the victim of an accident that he or she could need further medical treatments in the future, then that would count as an additional medical expense. Still, medical expenses are not the only source of an economic loss.
If a recovering victim must refrain from going to his or her workplace, then that leads to a loss of wages. If an injury disables or disfigures its victim, then that can give rise to the realization of a claimant’s loss of future earning opportunities, as per Personal Injury Lawyer in Richmond Hill.
Sometimes a defective product destroys some item that was owned by the person using that particular product. Whenever that is the case, then the user can claim a loss of property.
What are some examples of a non-economic loss?
The legal system views pain and suffering as a non-economic loss. The development of emotional issues can get pointed to as a non-economic loss. In addition, an injured victim could become unable to enjoy certain activities that he or she enjoyed in the past. That would represent yet another non-economic loss.
Punitive damages
These do not have the same purpose as the compensatory damages. These are not supposed to help the injured victim become “whole.” Instead, these are meant to keep the defendant from repeating the violation that caused creation of the defective product.
What sorts of violations could lead to the creation of or marketing of a defective product?
Poor training of workers in the quality control department
Insistence on speed, rather than quality during the manufacturing process
Not providing the workers with top-quality parts, when they must assemble a specific product
Failure to place a warning sticker on a product that has the potential to malfunction unexpectedly
Failure to send a warning letter to consumers that are known to have purchased a product that could malfunction unexpectedly; sending out such a letter, but failing to share useful details about the product’s defect