Greenville Product Defect Lawyer
When a product fails and causes a serious injury, the defect is not always visible. A power tool may contain a faulty component, a vehicle safety system may fail during a crash, or an appliance may overheat despite being used exactly as intended. Determining why it happened can require looking well beyond the product’s brand name or outward appearance.
Our Greenville product defect lawyers represent people injured by dangerous consumer products, vehicles and components, tools, appliances, and other defective products. Mooneyham Berry investigates how the product was designed and manufactured, whether similar failures have been reported, and which companies were responsible for putting it into the marketplace.
If you or someone you love was seriously injured by a product, preserve the product and any packaging, instructions, receipts, or photographs you still have. Contact our product liability attorneys before repairing, returning, or disposing of it so the evidence can be properly evaluated.
What Counts as a Product Defect Claim
An injury involving a product does not necessarily mean the product was defective. Some products carry unavoidable risks even when properly designed and manufactured, and injuries can also result from misuse that the manufacturer could not reasonably anticipate.
A product defect claim focuses on the condition of the product when it leaves the manufacturer or seller and whether that condition makes it unreasonably dangerous. South Carolina allows these cases to proceed under several legal theories, including strict liability, negligence, and breach of warranty.
Strict liability is particularly important in product cases because an injured consumer does not necessarily have to prove exactly how a manufacturer was careless. The focus is on whether the product was defective and unreasonably dangerous when it entered the stream of commerce and whether that defect caused the injury.
Three Types of Defective Product Claims
The source of the danger generally falls into one of three categories: the product was unsafe by design, something went wrong while it was being manufactured, or the instructions and warnings failed to adequately address a known risk. Determining which applies affects both the evidence we need and the companies that may ultimately be responsible.
Design Defects
A design defect affects the product as it was intended to be made. Every unit may conform perfectly to the manufacturer's specifications and still present an unreasonable danger because the problem is built into the design itself.
These cases often require engineers or other product experts to examine whether a safer, practical alternative design could have reduced or prevented the risk without fundamentally changing the product's purpose. Internal testing, earlier prototypes, design changes, and the manufacturer's own safety analysis can become important evidence.
Manufacturing Defects
A manufacturing defect occurs when a particular product or batch does not match its intended design. The underlying design may be safe, but something goes wrong during production, assembly, or quality control.
A cracked component, improperly installed fastener, contaminated material, or defective battery could make one unit dangerous even while thousands of otherwise identical products function normally. Comparing the failed product with the manufacturer's specifications and properly manufactured units can help identify where that deviation occurred.
Failure to Warn or Provide Adequate Instructions
Some products are dangerous not because of how they are designed or assembled, but because consumers are not given adequate information about a risk. Manufacturers generally have responsibilities involving non-obvious dangers associated with reasonably anticipated uses of their products.
A warning claim may involve missing safety instructions, an inadequate explanation of a known hazard, or a warning placed or written in a way that does not reasonably communicate the risk. Unlike a manufacturing defect, the physical product may function exactly as intended—the problem is that the person using it was not adequately informed about a danger associated with that use.
Who Can Be Held Liable for a Defective Product?
The company whose name appears on a product is not necessarily the only company responsible for a defect. Products can pass through manufacturers, component suppliers, distributors, and retailers before reaching the consumer, and the source of the failure may be several steps removed from where the product was ultimately purchased.
Depending on how the defect occurred, potentially responsible parties can include:
- The manufacturer that designed or assembled the finished product
- A company that manufactured a defective component
- A distributor involved in placing the product into the marketplace
- A retailer or seller in circumstances where its own conduct contributed to the injury
- Other companies involved in modifying, assembling, labeling, or distributing the product
Identifying the right parties requires tracing the product backward through that chain. A retailer may have had no role in creating a manufacturing defect, while several companies involved in designing and producing the product may possess information relevant to why it failed.
When a Defective Component Causes the Injury
Many products are assembled from components designed and manufactured by different companies. The brand on the finished product may therefore tell only part of the story.
A power tool fire may originate with a defective battery manufactured by a supplier. An airbag failure may trace back to the company that produced the inflator rather than the vehicle manufacturer itself. A household appliance may fail because of a valve, electrical component, or other part supplied by another company.
Our product liability attorneys trace the failure to its source rather than stopping with the company named on the packaging. That may require examining manufacturing records, supplier relationships, engineering specifications, recalls, and previous reports involving the same component.
When multiple companies participated in bringing a defective product to market, determining what each one designed, manufactured, supplied, or controlled helps establish where responsibility for the injury belongs.
Proving a Product Liability Lawsuit
Product liability cases depend heavily on physical and technical evidence. Unlike many injury claims, the object that caused the injury may itself contain the best evidence of what went wrong. Our attorneys typically:
- Secure and preserve the product, packaging, instructions, warnings, and related components
- Collect photographs, purchase records, repair records, and other documentation showing the product's history and condition
- Research recalls, safety notices, and reports of similar failures involving the same product or component
- Consult engineers or other qualified product experts to identify how and why the product failed
- Trace the product through manufacturers, component suppliers, distributors, and other companies involved in bringing it to market
The exact investigation depends on the type of defect involved. A manufacturing defect may require comparing the failed product with specifications or an undamaged unit, while a design defect can require engineering analysis of the product's design and possible safer alternatives.
Preserve the Defective Product
If possible, do not throw away, repair, return, dismantle, or otherwise alter a product after it causes an injury. Keep the product itself along with its packaging, instructions, receipts, damaged components, and anything else associated with it.
A photograph can document what the product looked like after an incident, but it cannot always show why it failed. An engineer may need to examine broken components, electrical systems, materials, fasteners, internal mechanisms, or other details that cannot be adequately evaluated from photographs alone.
The manufacturer may also argue that the product was misused, modified, poorly maintained, or damaged after it left the company's control. Preserving it in substantially the same condition it was in after the incident gives experts an opportunity to evaluate those possibilities directly.
Why an Early Investigation Matters
South Carolina generally imposes a three-year filing period on personal injury claims, including many product liability cases. But the legal deadline is not the only reason to begin investigating early.
A defective product can be discarded, repaired, returned to a retailer, taken by an insurance company, or altered before anyone determines what caused the failure. Packaging and receipts can disappear, witnesses may become harder to locate, and additional units of the same product may become more difficult to obtain for comparison.
Preserving that evidence early can make a substantial difference in whether an expert is able to identify the defect and connect it to the injury.
Why Choose Mooneyham Berry for a Product Liability Case?
Product liability cases can require engineering analysis, technical evidence, and litigation against manufacturers and other corporate defendants with substantial resources. Mooneyham Berry brings more than 40 years of combined litigation experience to these claims, including direct experience handling defective product and mass tort cases in South Carolina and Georgia.
Product Liability and Trial Experience
Our firm’s experience includes litigating defective product claims as well as more than 100 cases tried to verdict in South Carolina state and federal courts. We also have a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates and experience handling complex civil litigation across multiple jurisdictions.
That combination matters when a case requires both technical expert testimony and the ability to establish how a manufacturer’s design, production process, or warnings contributed to an injury.
Experience With Corporate and Insurance Defense
Our team also includes prior experience representing insurers and corporate defendants. We understand the arguments manufacturers may use to shift responsibility away from the product, including claims that it was misused, improperly maintained, modified after purchase, or damaged in some other way.
We build the investigation with those arguments in mind. Preserving the product, documenting its history, and obtaining the right technical analysis early can help establish whether the evidence actually supports the manufacturer's explanation.
Looking Beyond the Evidence a Manufacturer Provides
Some of the most important evidence in a product liability case may never have been available to the consumer. Manufacturers can possess internal testing results, engineering communications, design revisions, prior complaints, quality-control records, and other information concerning how a product was developed and what the company knew about potential failures.
Our attorneys use the discovery process to pursue records relevant to the specific defect rather than relying only on publicly available recall information or documents a manufacturer chooses to provide voluntarily.
That can be especially important when an injured consumer has one failed product in their possession but the manufacturer has years of information about how that product was designed, tested, produced, and evaluated after other reported failures.
What Our Product Defect Lawyers Can Help You Recover
A defective product can cause injuries that require far more than the initial emergency treatment. Burns may require multiple surgeries, a failed vehicle component can result in permanent disability, and injuries involving machinery or power tools can prevent someone from returning to the work they performed before the accident.
Depending on the circumstances, our product defect lawyers may pursue compensation for:
- Past and future medical expenses
- Rehabilitation and ongoing treatment
- Lost wages and reduced earning capacity
- Pain and suffering
- Permanent impairment or disfigurement
- Long-term assistance or care
- Wrongful death damages when a defective product causes a fatal injury
The losses involved depend heavily on what the product failure actually changes for the injured person. We look beyond the initial medical bills to consider future treatment, limitations on employment, permanent physical effects, and other consequences that can continue long after the defective product itself has been examined.
When a Defective Product Affects Many Consumers
A defect does not always involve a single failed product. Recalls, repeated safety complaints, or similar injuries involving the same model may reveal a problem affecting products sold to thousands of consumers.
In some situations, that can lead to coordinated litigation, a mass tort, or a class action. Those proceedings do not automatically determine how an individual with a serious injury should pursue a claim. The type and severity of the injury, the nature of the defect, and the structure of any existing litigation all matter.
Our product liability attorneys can determine whether broader litigation involving the same product already exists and how it may affect the options available for an individual claim.
Trust Mooneyham Berry With Your Greenville Product Defect Case
After a product causes a serious injury, what happens to that product matters. Returning it to the retailer, allowing it to be repaired, handing it over to an insurer, or simply throwing it away can eliminate evidence an engineer may need to determine why it failed.
Mooneyham Berry can take steps to preserve the product and investigate beyond what is visible from the outside. Our attorneys can examine recalls and similar incidents, work with qualified experts, trace defective components to their source, and pursue internal testing, design, and manufacturing records when the case requires it.
Manufacturers and their insurers may begin investigating a serious product failure quickly. You should have someone protecting the physical evidence and building the case from your side as well.
If you or someone you love was seriously injured by a defective product in Greenville, keep the product, packaging, instructions, receipts, and photographs you still have, and avoid repairing or altering the item. Contact Mooneyham Berry so our product defect lawyers can evaluate what happened and determine what evidence needs to be preserved.