Product Liability Playbook

Product liability-related court activity is trending up. Way up.

In fact, a 2020 analysis revealed that it had increased over 300 percent.

But it’s tough to pin down exactly what’s driving this trend. Product liability matters are multi-faceted, cover a wide range of legal topics and span many industries.

So, how can a savvy product liability attorney step in and assist an ever-growing list of folks looking for guidance?

To help answer that question, we created this handy Product Liability Playbook. It’s packed with links to relevant articles that’ll break down some recent developments in this booming practice area.

Why is Product Liability a Growing Practice Area Now?

The COVID-19 pandemic upended many segments of the legal profession. But it’s clear that, while some practice areas contracted, others expanded significantly. And nowhere is this more evident than with product liability—again, clocking a 300 percent uptick in the early half of 2020.

There are a handful of reasons why this happened. For starters, it affected several vital (and large!) industries, including healthcare and automotive. Additionally, new and changing federal regulations and potential legislation are poised to spur growth in product liability cases.

Want to really get into the weeds? Click below for the full article.

Product Liability: Growing Despite a Pandemic

Legal Research for Product Liability Cases

Now that we’re seeing a spike in product liability court activity, how can you grow your practice and help these new clients? Good news friend, there’s a powerful resource designed specifically for product liability attorneys.

It’s called Lexis Product Liability Navigator™ and it’s loaded with tools to help you build an ironclad product liability case. Better still, this resource pulls a trove of materials together in a single, intuitive dashboard—potentially shaving hours, if not days, off your research time.

And it’s not just about building your product liability case either. You can use Lexis Product t Liability Navigator to figure out whether it’s even worth it to take a case to begin with. And you’ll see how much a potential award could be—and how long it’ll likely take to reach a decision in your case. Pretty handy stuff, right?

Get the full scoop on this resource in the Spotlight below.

Product Spotlight: Lexis Product Liability Navigator

Product Liability vs Strict Liability

Before we go any further, there’s an important partition to draw between strict liability and product liability. To make sure that distinction is clear, we put together a solid primer on the differences between the two. It examines some claims and provides practical examples of each.

Need a fresh look? Just click below.

Understanding the Interplay Between Strict Liability and Product Liability

The Automotive Industry

From airbags to ignition switches, automobile manufacturers are no stranger to product liability actions. And with the rise of the autonomous vehicle technologies, it’s not going to let up any time soon. In fact, driverless cars are poised to raise legal questions that were previously unheard of.

As the line between automobile and computer blur, as software glitches usurp mechanical defects, legal professionals are bracing for a host of groundbreaking cases. You should start preparing for them now.

Here’s a quick article that’ll dive a bit deeper into the topic.

Self-Driving Cars Run Into Product Liability Issues

Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Product Liability

The rise in product liability cases is being pushed, in part, to a growing number of filings that target pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers. As the nation (and the world) evolves in a post-COVID environment, healthcare-related product liability cases are evolving too.

But the increase in cases isn’t being driven solely by the coronavirus. Indeed, there are several particular areas that are pushing product liability court activity in the medical space.

We put together an article that highlights four of them—read it below.

Drug & Medical Device Makers Increasingly Targeted in Lawsuits

CBD Class Actions

Show of hands: Does anybody really know what’s going on in the legalized pot industry anymore? Given the fact that cannabis is still considered a controlled substance in the eyes of the federal government, it means that any CBD-related product faces a complex mix of legal issues. Yet this doesn’t stop the legal marijuana industry from taking its foot off the product development pedal. CBD-based products are expanding in both scope and scale—filling boutique shop and grocery store shelves alike.

Suffice it to say, there’s probably going to be a host of CBD-related product liability cases on the horizon. Here’s a good article to cut through some of the smoke clouding the issue.

CBD Class Actions Placed on Hold for FDA Rulemaking

E-Cigarettes

In 2019, the National Youth Tobacco Survey found that 27.5 percent of U.S. high school students use e-cigarettes—1.4 million of which started using these products within the past year.

Yikes.

As the use of e-cigarettes has grown, so have the numbers of injuries and deaths related to vaping. Simply put, vaping is raising many new medical questions. And as doctors get a better understanding of the health impacts of e-cigarettes and begin to answer those questions, expect a host of product liability cases to follow.

Get up to speed on some legal considerations of vaping and e-cigarettes here in this short article.

The E-Cigarette Industry’s Legal Troubles

Lexis Product Liability Navigator

So yeah, product liability court activity is increasing, both in filings and in complexity—which is not that surprising considering some of the factors we’ve alluded to above.

Are you a product liability attorney? You read about Lexis Product Liability Navigator earlier in this article. If you think it can help your legal practice, seeing it firsthand will really showcase its capabilities.

Click here and get a closer look at Lexis Product Liability Navigator