Defective Products / Product Liability

Dué Guidry Piedrahita Andrews Courrege L.C. is recognized by the U.S. News & World Report Best Law Firms rankings in the practice area of Product Liability Litigation-Plaintiffs for Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

The experienced and well-financed Baton Rouge, Louisiana product liability lawyers at Dué Guidry Piedrahita Andrews Courrege L.C. have handled numerous products liability cases on behalf of seriously injured victims and their families. Scott Andrews serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law and has taught Product Liability at the Southern University Law Center. Product liability cases can generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses for failure analysis and crash testing, and for expert witnesses in accident reconstruction, design, warnings, fire cause and origin, and biomechanics. For this reason, we usually only handle catastrophic injury and wrongful death products liability cases.

Manufacturers of defective products are protected in Louisiana by the Louisiana Product Liability Act (LPLA), Louisiana Revised Statutes, 9:2800.51, et seq., which provides the exclusive theories of liability for defective products causing injury in Louisiana. Under the LPLA, a product manufacturer can be held liable only if the product that causes the injury is unreasonably dangerous in construction or composition, unreasonably dangerous in design, unreasonably dangerous because of inadequate warning, or unreasonably dangerous because of nonconformity to express warranty. In order for a defective product to be considered unreasonably dangerous, the injury caused by the product must have been from a reasonably anticipated use of the product. In order for a product to be unreasonably dangerous in design, there must have existed an alternative design of the product that was capable of preventing the injury.

A court finding that a product is defective can have disastrous consequences for product manufacturers. Therefore, many product manufacturers will go to great lengths and expense to protect their products and their damaging internal documents. Inexperienced plaintiff products liability lawyers can be easily taken advantage of during the discovery process by product manufacturers who are willing to manipulate the system. Under capitalized plaintiff products liability lawyers can be quickly outspent or even bankrupted by product manufacturers willing to spare no expense to protect their product.

Most of our Baton Rouge, Louisiana product liability trial lawyers’ substantial accomplishments against product manufacturers are shielded by confidentiality agreements so we are unable to fully disclose our past results. However, we are able to disclose that we recently handled a multiple death and multiple burn injury case against Daimler-Chrysler Corporation in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, involving an allegation that the bottom-mounted plastic fuel tank should have been shielded so as to prevent puncture and a fuel-fed fire on I-55 in Kentwood. Other representative cases include auto defect cases against General Motors (fuel fed fire, and failure of an air-bag to deploy upon frontal impact in Alexandria) and against Toyota (fuel fed fire in California and seat belt / seat back defects in Caldwell Parish). We are also accepting Takata Air Bag Recall cases and GM Ignition Switch Recall cases.

Our Baton Rouge defective product attorneys have also handled defective product claims against many other manufacturers throughout the State of Louisiana, including for allegedly defective drugs (baby aspirin in Amite, New Orleans,and Lafayette), industrial equipment (i.e. crane without anti-tube locking in Baton Rouge, and a horizontal boring machine in Opelousas), casino stool (lack of stability), in Baton Rouge, ladder (defective fiberglass and molding in Monroe), microwave (magnetometer, thermal fuse, and controls) in Baton Rouge, commercial deep fat fryer (lack of restraints in Bastrop), and fireworks manufacturer for a launcher blow-out (St. James Parish).

Contact the experienced Baton Rouge, Louisiana defective product attorneys at Dué Guidry Piedrahita Andrews Courrege L.C. to schedule a FREE CONSULTATION.