PRODUCT LIABILITY CASE STUDIES:
(None of my clients' real names have been used in these Case Histories. All names have been changed to protect the privacy of the injured party.)

John--a product liability case involving an amputation

ohn was a warehouse employee whose foot was run over and crushed by a forklift that was backing up.  He had had several surgeries to remove parts of his foot, and he can no longer work because of the pain. 

As an experienced product liability lawyer in Philadelphia, I filed suit against the forklift manufacturer because they did not install a back-up beeper on the forklift that ran over John's foot.  To develop my case I had to sort through cartons of documents from the forklift manufacturer.  I also received cartons of information from other lawyers from across the United States who had litigated similar cases against the same or similar forklift manufacturers. My networking abilities, nationwide databases, and research capabilities ensure that I don't have to "reinvent the wheel" when I take on a large, regional, or national company as a defendant.

My access to information helped me win the case for John -- and get him a large enough settlement so he could retire in Florida.

Peter--a "show-and-tell" product liability trial

Peter, a carpenter, severely cut his arm with a power miter saw. 

I have a lot of experience with defective products and product liability cases, so rather than settle, I determined that there was an opportunity to get more money for my client by filing suit against the saw manufacturer.  I set out to prove that Peter's saw was not as safe as competitive models, a difficult task, at best.  At the trial, I actually used Peter's saw and a competitor's model, and we cut wood at the trial to demonstrate that Peter's saw was not as safe as it should be.

I won the trial.

Barbara--"bugs in crackers"

Barbara came to me because she bought a "stack-pack" of Ritz crackers that tasted like soap.  A close inspection of the crackers revealed an extra ingredient -- bugs.

I agreed to represent her as her product liability lawyer and sent the package off to a laboratory for analysis and sure enough, there were bugs in the crackers that caused them to have a soapy taste.  Barbara had an intense emotional reaction after finding out that the crackers she had eaten contained bugs.  She required psychological treatment and actually had to drop out of college for a semester because of nightmares.

I was able to convince an arbitration panel that my client's suffering was legitimate, and they awarded her more money than we expected.  This product liability case is important because it proves that you don't have to suffer physically in order to be awarded compensation.