Each year, thousands of consumers are injured by defective products. These victims, who suffer life altering physical and emotional injuries, are often left unable to work or perform basic functions such as caring for themselves and their families.

The injuries sustained by these individuals could result from an error in the product’s manufacturing process (such that the product is not built to specifications), or from the defective design of the product. Injuries also stem from inadequate product safety warnings, poor product instructions, inadequate product testing, unsafe component parts, or inaccurate marketing.

The harm caused by defective products, or the failure to warn that these products can and do cause injury if proper precautions are not taken, can be debilitating or lethal, leaving injured victims with substantial and lifelong physical pain and emotional suffering. And the victims of defective products and their families are often forced to endure substantial medical costs and other out-of-pocket expenses.

Phillips & Paolicelli, LLP believes that the victims of defective products are entitled to full compensation for their losses, and we are proud to have successfully litigated such claims against some of the world’s largest corporations. We also believe that, by holding corporations responsible for their marketplace misconduct, they may be more responsible in the future, hopefully, eliminating similar injuries and occurrences and creating a safer stream of commerce.

If you or someone you love has suffered serious personal injury or property loss from any of the following products, you and your family may be entitled to compensation:

Airbags In Automobiles:

When an airbag improperly deploys or fails to deploy when a car is involved in an accident it may be defective. Often times, the injuries sustained by a passenger or driver from an airbag which deploys in a defective way are more severe than if the air bag never deployed at all or from the accident itself. These low impact deployments can often cause severe and permanent injuries to the passenger or driver’s face, eyes and body.

Airplanes:

If you have suffered severe and permanent injury or someone you love has died in an air crash, the pilot, the airline, or the manufacturer of the airplane or its component parts may be at fault. Sometimes air crashes also result from the negligence or improper conduct of maintenance operators or the ground crew.

All-Terrain Vehicles (“ATVs”):

The manufacturers’ failure to warn about the instability and inherent danger of such vehicles, their lack of a limited slip differential, and certain aspects of an ATV’s design, including its configuration, which renders an ATV prone to rollover during a turn and prone to flip-over while ascending a hill, may be the basis of legal action if you or someone you love was injured while riding an ATV. The manufacturers’ conduct in the design, testing, marketing, and sale of ATV’s has frequently been cited in lawsuits where riders of ATV’s were catastrophically injured.

Automobiles and their component parts:

Cars and parts of cars are sometimes improperly designed or are defective. These occurrences may lead to or contribute to automobile accidents or severe and permanent personal injuries to the drivers and occupants of automobiles.

The component parts or parts of cars which have been shown to be susceptible to defects in their design and have resulted in injuries and legal actions include the following:

• Brake failures;

• Catastrophic failures of steering;

• Engine overheating;

• Gas tank explosions;

• Spontaneous fire due to defective electrical and fuel tank components; and

• Child safety devices, such as car seats.

Other defective products known to cause injuries:

• Cribs;

• Escalators and elevators; and

• Propane Tanks and Barbeque Grills.

Mislabeling of Products:

Mislabeled consumer products can also injure innocent victims. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has specific rules and regulations about how food products must be labeled, specifically regulating what a product contains and what is said about those ingredients on the the labels. Large manufacturers of food have been accused of violating the FDA’s rules as many labels and the descriptions of the ingredients of the product on those labels is false and misleading.

Medical Devices:

Today, the implantation of medical devices is a common method for sustaining and improving bodily functions. Doctors routinely recommend and perform a number of operations involving medical devices: knee replacements, hip implants, pelvic mesh, and stents. When these devices themselves malfunction, they are usually recalled from the market as quickly as possible.

Still, damage is done – and the health effects are at times far more serious than those initially reported by the manufacturer.

Products like metal-on-metal hip replacements, for example, have proven unsafe – resulting not only in the patient’s having to endure a second revision surgery, but also putting his or her bones and tissue at risk for inflammation.

The lawyers at Phillips & Paolicelli, LLP are determined to rectify the harm caused by these and other devices in the form of victim compensation and total product recall.

Faulty Pharmaceuticals

Sometimes products manufactured for use as medicinal drugs by pharmaceutical companies prove harmful, even lethal. In such situations, people can find themselves at risk. More often than not, those injured make the connection only after they recognize the damage firsthand. An expecting mother can accidentally compromise the health of her unborn child with medication prescribed by her doctor. The fault here lies on the part of pharmaceutical companies who fail to disclose important information about a drug’s serious side effects.

Prenatal use of medications like Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft have been linked to childhood developmental delays, including autism. Other medications, like Accutane, are highly likely to cause birth defects if taken during pregnancy.

The FDA is charged with the task of overseeing the prescription drugs released onto the market. Unfortunately, consumer safety is all too easily disregarded by a pharmaceutical industry primarily concerned with short-term profit.

The fault lies with the pharmaceutical companies who fail to disclose relevant information about a drug’s more serious side effects. For the patient, these effects can prove to be as devastating as they were unpredictable. When the FDA is unable to prevent a drug-induced illness, Phillips & Paolicelli works toward prevention in the future.

Contaminated Steroid Shots and Meningitis

The outbreak of fungal meningitis has led some people to question the widespread use of epidural steroid injections for pain. Steroids contaminated with a fungus are suspected of transmitting the infection.

Patients who have developed this rare form of meningitis, an inflammation of the lining of the brain, have received steroid injections from a Framingham, Mass., specialty pharmacy, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to the CDC, 13,000 patients were treated with three recalled lots of steroids. While most of those patients received epidural injections for lower back pain, some patients may have been injected in the knee or other areas. Contaminated epidural injections, which are given near the spine, can lead to meningitis because the spinal fluid provides an express route to the brain.

Our attorneys have decades of experience in successfully litigating claims such as those described above resulting in significant compensation for our clients, as well as the recall of the product in question. If you or a loved one has suffered a loss as the result of a defective product, please contact us.