Holiday Injuries From Unsafe Gifts
A new flat screen television, a smart phone, exercise equipment and a monthly subscription to the fruit of the month club. Yep, a couple of fine gifts from friends and loved ones this year for the holidays. But did you know…those same gifts could be dangerous, even deadly?
Take for instance the flat screen TV…the bigger they are the more cumbersome they become. And because they are manufactured to be thin, they’re not as sturdy or balanced as you might expect. A slight bump and the screen comes crashing down on anything or anyone below it.
How about that new smartphone? Think it’s safe? Maybe not. Several mobile phone models have been banned from domestic and international flights due to exploding batteries inside the actual phones. Imagine if the phone exploded while in your pocket or when a loved one was using it. Not good.
Oh, and that exercise equipment…don’t get me started. Sure, it looked great on display when you ordered it. Then you get it home and it’s not as easy as the person who demonstrated it made it appear. Then you injure yourself. It happens quite frequently too. Especially on automatic treadmills and weight sets with pulley systems.
And let’s not forget about the gift that keeps on giving the whole year long…the fruit of the month. Hey, you eat fruit all the time, no big deal right? You think it’s a great gift. Maybe it is. Then again, maybe it isn’t. Every month a new delicious box of natural goodness arrives packaged in a crate of some sort. But how long has it been in shipment? Where did it travel from? Was it stored properly? Is there instructions in the package that tell you about the fruit, how to clean it and where it came from. Some companies include that information, some do not. You might be thinking, “it’s fruit, what’s it matter?” And you might argue that it’s the same fruit you might find at a grocery store. And that might be true to an extent.
The point being is that not everything you receive as gifts comes with warning labels. No one really thinks about a flat screen television falling on them, or their smart phone being dangerous or the exercise equipment designed to help them build and tone muscles being the very thing that puts them in the hospital or coffin or getting E.coli or other food borne illness from fruit. Yet, every day across Indiana these things happen. And not just at the holidays.
When products are unsafe in any capacity and they cause harm to you or a loved one this falls under what’s called product liability law.
Products liability law involves the legal theories of strict liability, negligence, breach of warranty, fraud, misrepresentation, and violation of the deceptive trade practice laws. From a consumer standpoint, these cases generally concern whether appropriate warnings were given to users or consumers of products. Also involved are issues with placement of warnings, appropriate content for operating equipment manuals, appropriate design requirements, necessity for inspection or testing, compliance with statutes and regulations, and determination of recall or retrofit advisability. Product liability claims often involve heavy industrial equipment, tractors, bulldozers, cranes, lift trucks, oil field equipment, scaffolding, kitchen equipment, tires, pharmaceuticals, smoke detectors, medical supplies, bottling equipment, packaging equipment, chemicals and glues, fertilizers, tobacco products, automotive equipment, camping equipment, ski equipment, ski lift equipment, textiles, hand tools, consumer products, bicycles, surgical equipment, blood products, and food.
The Law Offices of David W. Holub is a personal injury law firm located in Merrillville, Indiana, focused on providing efficient and effective client-centered representation. Our mission is to provide top quality legal representation, which includes an uncompromising pursuit of our client’s legal interests, while being accessible and attentive to our clients during times of personal challenge. and speak to us today.
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