Defective Seat Belts

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Defective Seatbelt Lawsuits

If a person suffers personal injuries because of a defective seat belt they can bring a personal injury lawsuit seeking damages from the responsible parties.  If the defective seat belt results in the death of a person, a wrongful death action can be pursued by the family of the deceased.  The nature of the accident and the known or suspected causes of the plaintiff’s injuries will determine which parties should be joined as defendants and the legal theories that can be pursued against each. 

Most personal injury or wrongful death cases involving seat belt defects begin with a car accident or truck accident.  Therefore, plaintiffs will generally pursue a negligence action against other parties who were involved in the accident, as well as a products liability action against one or more entities involved in designing, manufacturing or selling the defective seat belt.  Both types of lawsuits require a plaintiff to show that the defendant is legally responsible for their injuries.  How exactly that is done will vary depending of the facts of the case and the theory of liability pursued.

A person is negligent when he or she fails to exercise the level of care that a reasonably prudent and careful person would exercise under similar circumstances.  Negligence can be either an affirmative act or an omission.  Whether a defendant acted negligently in a situation is a question of fact that will be decided by the jury.  In a civil lawsuit, it is the plaintiff’s obligation to prove each element of the tort of negligence to the jury by a preponderance of the evidence. 

The elements of a negligence claim are: duty, breach, causation and damages.  More specifically, the plaintiff must prove that: (1) the defendant owed them a duty of care in the situation, (2) the defendant breached that duty of care, (3) the defendant’s breach was the legal cause of the harm suffered by the plaintiff, and (4) the harm suffered by the plaintiff resulted in legally recognized damages.  Every case is different and the facts surrounding the accident and injury will determine what evidence is required to prove each element of the plaintiff’s negligence claim.

Products liability is a discrete area of tort law which has been developed to provide a method for holding people and entities responsible for the harm caused by dangerous or defective products.  Generally speaking, there are three types of product defects which may cause injury thereby giving rise to liability on the part of the sellers of that product: design defects, manufacturing defects, and marketing defects.  The “sellers” of the product include all parties who are in the product’s chain of distribution, such as the product’s designer, manufacturer, wholesaler, or retail supplier. 

A design defect is one that exists even before the product is actually constructed and is part of the intentional design of it, such as a shoulder-only seat belt.  A manufacturing defect is one that occurs when the product is being manufactured or assembled, for example a bolt in the seat belt retractor that was left out during production.  A marketing defect is a flaw in the way the product was marketed, e.g. failing to provide adequate instructions or warnings for a child booster seat. 
Defective product lawsuits will generally be based on theories of negligence, breach of warranty and / or strict liability.  Such cases are governed by special rules which sometimes make it easier for the plaintiff to establish liability on the part of the defendants.  Every lawsuit is different and the specific facts and circumstances of each case will determine the best products liability theory to pursue and the evidence which will be required to prove the plaintiff’s case.

Lawsuits related to defective seat belts can present a variety of complex legal causation and liability issues.  This is especially true if the plaintiff’s injuries are also partially caused or compounded by other defects in the vehicle or one of its component parts.  Automotive products liability is a highly specialized field of law.  To succeed in such cases will require an attorney with the knowledge, experience, and resources to stand up against large automakers and component parts manufacturers.  Due to the complexity of these cases, and the stakes involved, catastrophic personal injury or wrongful death cases related to defective automotive parts, including defective seat belts and child safety devices, should only be handled by attorneys with experience in similar cases.  From the very beginning of the case, the plaintiff’s choice of attorney will have a significant impact on its outcome.   

As with any serious automotive products liability case, a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit related to a defective seat belt will require extensive work on the part of multiple experts in order to prove the plaintiff’s allegations regarding liability and damages.  Professionals from a variety of specialized fields will need to be quickly mobilized in order to gather, protect and analyze crucial evidence.  In a defective seat belt case, a thorough investigation must be conducted of the accident scene, the vehicle or vehicles involved, the seat belt itself, the plaintiff’s clothes, and a number of other pieces of physical evidence.  Evidence of a defect can sometimes be very difficult to identify and this work must be done by people with experience in similar cases.  Analysis of the plaintiff’s injuries can also lead to important evidence regarding how the seat belt failed and the consequences of that failure. 

The goal of all of these efforts is to help the attorney prove causation, liability and damages in a court of law.  If the plaintiff is successful in establishing the defendant’s liability in a personal injury case, they will be entitled to recover damages.  The damages available to the plaintiff will be different in every case but can generally include past and future medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering.  In some cases, punitive damages may also be available. 

All potential plaintiffs must be aware that any personal injury, products liability or wrongful death case will be subject to strict statutes of limitation.  A statute of limitation is a law which limits the amount of time a person has to file a legal claim.  If the applicable deadline is missed, the plaintiff’s right to recover will be lost forever.  It is therefore critical that you speak with a qualified California attorney as soon as possible after any accident.

The risk of tort liability encourages the development of safer products.  Products liability lawsuits are often necessary to protect consumers from unsafe products, force changes in industry-wide practices, and hold wrongdoers accountable for the harm their products have caused.  Historically, many of the safety advancements we have made as a society can be traced to the dedicated men and women, consumers and attorneys alike, who have been willing to stand up against big corporations and protect the public from future harm.  If you have suffered an egregious wrong at the hands of a big corporation, negligent individual, or irresponsible insurance company, you can find no better ally in your fight for justice than The Brady Law Group.  

SAN FRANCISCO PERSONAL INJURY ATTORNEY ABOUT PRACTICE AREAS VERDICTS TESTIMONIALS REFERRALSCONTACT US

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