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Product Liability

Defense Strategy

Vedder Price attorneys work with our clients to develop the most economical defense strategy for each client’s unique product liability needs. Our first priority in each case is to select the most appropriate tactics to advance the client’s custom-tailored, business-sensitive litigation strategy. Combining extensive knowledge of science and technology obtained while pursuing advanced degrees in the physical sciences with well-honed investigative skills, Vedder Price attorneys strive to reach solutions to product liability lawsuits that contribute to the client’s long-term, cost-effective program of defense within the context of the client’s larger long-term business objectives.

Creative and Innovative Defenses

To advance our clients’ product liability policies, Vedder Price takes pride in applying creative and innovative ideas to the defense of product liability actions. Our product liability attorneys constantly seek new methods to achieve a decisive advantage for our clients. Following are some examples of specific results we have achieved using innovative strategies:

Three carpenters in three separate lawsuits brought over a two-year time span alleged that a component on a power tool made by our client had failed in the same way and caused serious hand injuries to each of them. Drawing on his knowledge of physics, the Vedder Price attorney recognized that the failure mode alleged was incapable of causing the accidents. Proving that to a jury, however, would require communicating a sophisticated understanding of the laws of physics to a group of lay people. In order to strengthen the defense case, the attorney pursued another tack. From his knowledge of the industry, the Vedder Price attorney knew that in the 18 years that the product had been sold throughout the world, this alleged failure mode had never been reported by any user of the product except these three plaintiffs. Probing more deeply, the attorney learned that although the three plaintiffs did not have the same trial attorneys, they all shared a common referring attorney. Moreover, they all lived within about a 25-mile radius of each other. Borrowing methods of statistical proof from employment discrimination cases, he demonstrated that it would be extremely unlikely that, if the product were defectively designed, the defect would manifest itself only three times in 18 years, only in a small region of the country, and only to people who shared the same attorney. The conclusion was inescapable that the three claims were fabrications. The first case was tried to a defense verdict, and prosecution of the remaining cases ceased.
The plaintiff, an owner of a home that had a liquefied petroleum (“LP”) gas appliance made by a Vedder Price client, sought to blame an explosion that occurred in the home on gas leaking from the appliance. The Vedder Price attorney, analyzing the physical evidence from the explosion and employing his extensive knowledge of the physical sciences, suspected that the explosion was caused by a lighter-than-air gas, while LP gas is heavier than air. After an extensive investigation of the site, he proved that a blocked vent in the home’s septic tank had caused a large reservoir of methane to accumulate in the tank. Moreover, another flaw in the waste handling system resulted in suctioning of the basement shower drain when the toilet was flushed, permitting methane from the septic system to back up into the home. On deposition, the plaintiff acknowledged that he had used the bathroom just before the explosion. Thus, through careful investigation and a scientific explanation of the cause of the explosion, the Vedder Price attorney was able to craft a compelling defense.
A young carpenter suffered a devastating injury when a small chip of metal penetrated his eye while he was removing a nail from a window soffit. The carpenter claimed that due to a metallurgical defect, the claw of the hammer broke as he pulled on the nail and the metal chip was ejected from the fracture face of the claw. Suspicious of the improbability of this description, the Vedder Price attorney sought to obtain the chip, which had been removed from the plaintiff’s eye with a magnet but had not been preserved by the hospital’s pathology department. By persistent inquiry in the face of repeated denials of knowledge as to the disposition of the metal chip, the attorney found the chip attached to a piece of Scotch tape on an office record of the plaintiff’s treating eye doctor. Using microphotography, the contour of the chip was matched to a crater on the face of the hammer, not the claw. To eject such a chip from the hardened face of a hammer would require striking the face with another hardened steel object such as a second hammer. When the Vedder Price attorney presented this evidence to the plaintiff’s attorney, the plaintiff recanted his story and admitted the correctness of the Vedder Price scenario. The case settled for nuisance value.
A mechanic suffered devastating crush injuries when he became entangled in a rotating component of an automobile-shredding machine. The plaintiff claimed the component was defectively manufactured. Although the manufacturer of the shredder had originally purchased and installed in the shredder a component from the client of Vedder Price, the component would have been replaced frequently over time due to wear and tear. The plaintiff assumed that the replacement component, which had lost all labels indicating its source due to extreme operating conditions, had also been made by Vedder Price’s client. However, having acquired extensive familiarity with the client’s business background, the attorney knew that several years before the accident, a group of engineers had left the employ of Vedder Price’s client, had misappropriated its engineering drawings and had started a competing business making components that were identical in appearance to the client’s. The Vedder Price attorney obtained summary judgment for the client because the plaintiff was unable to prove that the allegedly defective component was not made by the client’s competitors.
A young man was watching his friends modify the tailpipe of a car to fit it onto an oversized engine. The friends were using an abrasive masonry cutting wheel on a hand-held electric grinder to cut the steel tailpipe. The abrasive wheel, turning at 13,000 rpm, exploded and caused massive injuries to the plaintiff. The plaintiff alleged that the abrasive wheel had been manufactured by the Vedder Price client and produced fragments of such a wheel, claiming they were recovered from the scene of the accident. The Vedder Price attorney retained a laboratory to perform X-ray energy dispersion analysis of the fragments to determine whether there were any steel particles in the fragments with the same composition as the tailpipe. There were none. Further analysis of a portion of the client’s label attached to a piece of the broken wheel showed the label had been printed three months after the accident. The plaintiff’s attorney, confronted with this evidence, dismissed Vedder Price’s client from the case.

Range of Services

Vedder Price product liability attorneys provide a full range of product liability services, from counseling on accident prevention and claims avoidance to alternative dispute resolution and/or traditional trial practice, culminating in a defense verdict or appeal, if needed. We are highly experienced in all matters involving the Consumer Products Safety Commission, including preventive counseling to help our clients avoid CPSC-mandated “corrective action programs” such as product recalls. Our attorneys are science-educated, litigation-savvy, and trial-experienced. Vedder Price attorneys practice both locally and nationally, and always cost-effectively. In every step of the process we will work with you to determine your claims exposure, your tolerance for risk, and your long-range goals for product liability defense consistent with your overall business objectives.

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