West of Sacramento, in the San Mateo Superior Court, a verdict for $1.8 million was affirmed in a case where a man was seriously injured after a forklift fell on top of him. The plaintiff of the case, a forklift operator, alleged that the forklift had a defect in its design, placing “excessive stress on the tires”. The stress eventually caused a tire of the forklift to split, sending the forklift crashing down on top of the man, crushing his leg.
You can imagine how dramatic it all must have been. The injured man eventually lost his leg in the accident. The resulting $1.8 million verdict was for lost wages, medical expenses, and pain and suffering. It is unknown if the expenses also cover for prosthetics, but likely to be so. Nothing, however, covers for the loss of the leg, in the real sense of it, or for the pain associated with it.
A design defect occurs when there should have been an alternative solution used in the making of a product and because of the product’s current design, the product is now unreasonably dangerous. Many companies have faced charges because their products failed to comply with the standard safety regulations and ended up affecting people’s lives in dramatic ways.
The ugliest part of the problem suggests some companies go as far as purposely bypassing those safety regulations as a way to bypass costs and increase profit. Companies who have been found acting this way have been severely punished in the past and it’s expected the courts to keep on having a strong firm grip for these situations.
If you or a loved one have ever been injured because of a defective design, please call our Law Offices for further help and advice.
Until next time.
For the full report on this case, please click here.