Salt Lake City Product Liability Attorney

Building a Product Liability Claim

We usually start by collecting evidence that supports your claim. Causation is usually the key issue in defective product claims. Unless victims have substantial evidence on this point, their claims usually fail due to a lack of evidence.

Illness clusters are a good starting point. If many people who took Drug X develop cancer, there is a good chance that Drug X caused their cancer. Frequently, these companies know about these potentially serious side effects. But they suppress this information so they can continue selling pills and making money.

Cancer, and other such illnesses, usually have exceptionally long latency periods. Generally, by the time victims discover their illnesses, the injury statute of limitations, which is usually two years, has long passed. The discovery rule usually applies in these situations.

Assume Phil took Drug X for six months in 1990. In 2020, his doctor says he has cancer. In 2025, he sees a TV documentary about the link between Drug X and cancer.

In this case, the statute of limitations probably did not begin running in 2000 or even in 2020. Instead, the statute of limitations began running in 2025, when Phil knew the full extent of his injuries and he connected his damages with a company’s wrongful conduct.

The discovery rule varies in different states. Additionally, some states have a statute of repose that may cut off these claims much earlier. So, as soon as you learn about your illness and a possible connection to a defective product, it’s very important to contact a Salt Lake City defective products lawyer as soon as possible.

Next, as mentioned above, we assemble a team of expert witnesses that bolster the dangerous product-injury connection. Different states have different rules as to who qualifies as an expert. Usually, the expert must testify about facts, not theories, especially if those theories are not generally accepted in the scientific community. In most states, judges decide what experts are qualified to share their findings with jurors.

Determining Compensation

All this effort leads to maximum compensation for your serious injuries. Cancer and other serious illness treatments may cost tens of thousands of dollars a month. Additionally, most of these victims are so weak that they cannot work again. Compensation is available for all these economic losses.

Injury victims are also compensated for their emotional distress and other noneconomic losses. Usually, to determine such losses, a Salt Lake City defective products lawyer typically multiplies the economic losses by two, three, or four, depending on the facts of the case and a few other factors.

Additional punitive damages are generally available in defective product claims as well. Juries may award this compensation if there is clear and convincing evidence that the company intentionally disregarded a known risk. This punishes these companies and forces them to think twice before they put profits before people again.

Resolving a Claim

Most defective product claims settle out of court. Many of these claims settle during mediation, a process that occurs relatively late in the litigation cycle.

A third-party mediator, who is usually an unaffiliated Salt Lake City defective products lawyer, listens to arguments from both sides and then tries to engineer a settlement agreement. This process is about 90 percent successful in civil claims in Utah.

The nature of defective product claims makes the claims resolution process much more complicated and time-consuming.

As mentioned, most courts consolidate most mass tort claims. This consolidation could be pretrial Multi-District Litigation or whole trial class action litigation. Because of these additional complexities, an experienced Salt Lake City defective products lawyer is essential. Inexperienced lawyers who are unfamiliar with these processes quickly get overwhelmed.