Yesterday Toyota announced its largest recall ever when it announced its plan to recall 3.8 million vehicles due to a product defect. According to the auto manufacturer, the vehicles in question are equipped with a floor mat that causes the accelerator pedal to become stuck. As a temporary solution, the…
Articles Posted in Product Defects
FDA Warns Consumers on Body-Building Products Sold As Nutritional Supplements
Increased reports of medical problems associated with certain nutritional supplements has prompted The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to issue a public health advisory on body building supplements. These supplements may contain steroids or steroid-like substances and may be associated with kidney failure and liver failure in men. While the…
Automotive Product Liability Claims Against General Motors Will Continue To Stand Even After Bankruptcy
The U.S. government has struck a deal with General Motors (GM) that requires the car manufacturer to assume responsibility for any automobile product liability lawsuits filed after GM emerges from bankruptcy as a new, government-owned company. This requirement even applies to claims regarding vehicles manufactured by the old GM. This…
Illinois Hydroxycut Users Showing Symptoms Described by FDA
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advised consumers that products sold under the Hydroxycut branded name could cause liver and heart problems. The FDA Hydroxycut advisory stated that “although liver damage appears to be relatively rare, FDA believes consumers should not be exposed to unnecessary risks.” The results were…
Extraction Of Defective Medtronic’s Sprint Fidelis Cables Causes Deaths
Medtronic, the maker of Sprint Fidelis, a heart defibrillator cable, has taken its product off the market. But the problem with it still being used by some 150,000 people around Illinois and the country has resulted in several deaths in removing the defective cable. Medtronic estimates that the cable has…
Illinois Product Liability Case Involving Product Defect Hastened by Illinois Supreme Court Decision
In a recent Chicago product defect case, the pace of settlement negotiations were perhaps hastened because in November 2008 the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that defendants in negligence suits who settle prior to trial, should not be named on jury verdict forms for the purpose of apportioning liability (Ready v.…
Car, SUV And Truck Rollover Accidents No Longer Being Ignored By Manufacturers
Car and truck manufacturers have largely ignored the product defects causing insufficient occupant protection and rollover crashes until recently, relying instead on inadequate minimum government standards. However, this is changing in light of increased pressure from a consumer-friendly government coupled with years of having to compensate victims of rollover deaths…
Product Liability Case Reversed When Illinois Supreme Court Upholds Risk-Utility Design Test
The Illinois Supreme Court reversed a $27 million jury verdict award and ordered a new trial after applying the risk-utility test of Illinois product design liability in favor of the defendant. This is a new application of the risk-utility test, which typically falls in favor of the plaintiff. Illinois’ strict…
Illinois Attacks Distributor of Defective Baby Cribs
Last week Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit against SFCA, Inc., a distributor of baby cribs, bassinets and playpens, claiming that SFCA continues to sell and distribute the subject bassinet, even after voluntarily recalling 1,000,000 of the products in 2007. The bassinet allegedly has design flaws. Federal regulators…
Are All FDA Approved Devices Safe?
The U.S. Food and Drug Association is responsible for ensuring that new medical devices are safe enough to be put on the market. As a federal agency, the FDA controls regulation nationwide and within Illinois and Chicago. But what most consumers don’t know is that the process for approving these…