- Home
- Practice Areas
- Product Liability
Omaha Product Liability Attorneys
Holding manufacturers, retailers, and others liable for dangerous products
Free Consultation
Tell us what happened.
Consumers trust that the various products they purchase and use in everyday life will function properly and safely. But when those products fail, the consequences can be dangerous. Millions of Americans are injured each year in incidents involving consumer products, including injuries caused by defective products.
Victims may have the right to seek compensation for their injuries by filing a product liability lawsuit. But they should expect resistance from the companies that make and sell these products and their lawyers. If you or a loved one has been injured, it’s time to explore your legal options with Inserra Kelley Cooper Sewell.
How We Can Help
- Why should you choose Inserra Kelley Cooper Sewell?
- The different types of product defects in Omaha
- Common defective products
- What a victim must prove in an Omaha product liability case
- Potential compensation for Omaha defective product victims
- Omaha product liability frequently asked questions
- Is there an Omaha product liability lawyer near me?
Why should you choose Inserra Kelley Cooper Sewell?
The personal injury firm that you choose to handle your product liability case will make a difference in the outcome. Your attorney should be experienced with Nebraska product liability laws and court procedures. But representing personal injury victims requires more than knowing the law.
You shouldn’t be treated as a file number or left days and weeks on end without answers and updates to your case. You deserve someone who will be invested in your legal matter from start to finish. That’s why when you hire Inserra Kelley Cooper Sewell as your Omaha product liability attorneys, we immediately get to work by:
- Fully investigating what went wrong with the product and how it injured you
- Identifying all parties that may be held liable for your injuries
- Uncovering and obtaining evidence that supports a product liability claim
- Determining the nature and extent of your damages, including future damages
- Negotiating with the manufacturers and other responsible parties to attempt to reach a settlement
- Consulting with expert witnesses on key points in your product liability claim
- Filing a lawsuit and taking it to trial if a fair settlement cannot be reached
To learn more about how we serve our personal injury clients, read some of our past case results. Although past results don’t guarantee a future outcome, they do speak to the level of client service we bring to each case we handle.
The different types of product defects in Omaha
Product liability refers to the legal responsibility that manufacturers, retailers, and others have for injuries caused by dangerous and defective products. Unfortunately, there are many ways that products can be hazardous and injure the people using them. Nebraska law recognizes three distinct categories of product defects. Product liability claims may be based on:
- Design defects: A design defect is some sort of flaw in the product that makes it unreasonably dangerous. As an example, the fuel system in a sport utility vehicle may be designed in such a way that it explodes in a rollover crash.
- Manufacturing defects: These include errors that arose in the actual production, assembly, or construction of the product. For example, the wrong wire may have been installed in a power drill, and it causes the drill to overheat and catch fire.
- Marketing defects: These defects concern a lack of appropriate instructions or warnings about the product and its risks. They are also sometimes called failure-to-warn or labeling defects. A toy, for instance, should warn parents if it’s not suitable for a certain age.
Common defective products
Millions of consumer product-related injuries occur every year. Nearly any product imaginable can be designed, manufactured, or marketed and labeled in a way that makes it hazardous to consumers and users. Our Omaha product liability attorneys have experience seeking compensation for victims of a number of defective products, including:
- Automobiles and automotive parts: SUVs, trucks, passenger vehicles, faulty airbags, failed brakes, and dangerous fuel systems.
- Medical devices: Defective implants, surgical instruments, medical equipment, and adaptive devices and tools.
- Household appliances: Malfunctioning electronics, kitchen devices, space heaters, refrigerators, washing machines, and dryers.
- Children’s products: Unsafe toys, cribs, car seats, and strollers.
- Industrial equipment: Defective machinery, tools, garage doors, and lawn equipment.
What a victim must prove in an Omaha product liability case
In Nebraska, victims are not limited to one specific approach or “theory” of product liability. Rather, the state recognizes at least three different theories that victims may potentially advance, depending on the unique facts of the product and injury. They are:
- Negligence: A victim can argue that a product was poorly designed, manufactured, or lacking in suitable instructions and warnings, and that negligence was to blame. A negligence theory focuses on the defendant’s conduct and whether they failed to take steps to avoid reasonably foreseeable risks to the user’s safety.
- Strict liability: With strict liability, the victim need not prove that the manufacturer or other responsible party did something negligent. The victim must instead prove that the product was defective and unreasonably dangerous, and caused injury to the victim, among other elements.
- Breach of express warranty: For this, the victim will first need to show that the manufacturer or other party made an affirmation of fact or promise, description, sample, or model that became part of the basis of the bargain.
You may be able to advance one or more of the above theories in support of your demand for monetary damages. We will take the time to investigate the facts and determine how best to argue for the compensation you need.
Potential compensation for Omaha defective product victims
If you have been injured by a defective product, you could be facing steep medical bills, lost time from work, and other personal and financial losses. But filing a lawsuit can help you claim various types of monetary damages from the parties that were responsible for your injuries. That compensation may include:
- Medical bills: These include not only your medical bills incurred to date, but also reasonably projected future bills you may have for later treatments. Some examples of medical services that may be compensated are hospitalization, surgery, prescription medications, adaptive medical equipment, and physical therapy.
- Lost income: The injuries you sustain from the defective product may prevent you from working during your recovery. This can create financial distress for individuals and their families. You can ask the court to award you the money that you lose.
- Lost earning capacity: Depending on your injuries and your line of work, you may not be able to work at your full capacity moving forward. Some victims cannot work at all. As a result, they lose years of income, benefits, bonuses, and more.
- Non-economic damages: Whereas the above damages are classified as economic because they are based on objective data, non-economic damages are more subjective and intangible in nature. They can include pain and suffering, emotional distress, and loss of enjoyment of life.
- Property damage: The cost to replace or repair property that has been damaged, or the actual product itself that malfunctioned, may also be included. Depending on the product in question, this could be worth a substantial sum of money.
- Wrongful death damages: If the victim dies because of the defective product, the decedent’s personal representative can file a wrongful death lawsuit. Through this, eligible survivors can recover compensation for loss of financial support and other pecuniary losses. Medical and funeral expenses may also be recovered when beneficiaries paid or became legally obligated to pay them.
Omaha product liability frequently asked questions
Does the plaintiff in a product liability case have to be the person who purchased the product?
No, the person who was injured can potentially bring a claim even if they were not the person who bought the product. Product liability is not limited to the consumer who purchased the item, but it can include others. For example:
- An employer purchases a piece of equipment, and an employee is injured
- One spouse buys an appliance, and the other gets hurt by it
- A person receives a defective product as a gift and gets hurt
- A parent buys a toy, and the child is the one who is injured
It is possible for all of these victims to file a product liability claim in Nebraska. However, the specific theory may vary. For instance, with some warranty claims, whether a non-purchaser can recover depends on the type of warranty and the person’s relationship to the buyer. But other victims can advance other theories like the ones detailed above.
Who can be held liable in an Omaha product liability case?
What is the deadline to file a product liability lawsuit?
What role do expert witnesses play in these lawsuits?
Is there an Omaha product liability lawyer near me?
If you or a loved one were injured by a defective product in the Omaha area, Inserra Kelley Cooper Sewell is ready to assist you. Our office is located at 6790 Grover Street, Suite 200, Omaha, NE 68106-3642. We are proud to serve victims and their families in Omaha as well as:
- Aksarben
- Elmwood Park
- Robin Hill
- Ralston
- La Vista
- Dundee
- West Omaha
- Southwest Omaha
To locate us, look for such landmarks as the University of Nebraska Omaha, Baxter Arena, Elmwood Park, and Aksarben Village. We are fairly close to them. To reach us by car, you might take I-80 onto local streets serving the Grover Street and 60th to 72nd Street area. Omaha Metro bus service is also available to the area. Call us for assistance.
Contact our Omaha product liability attorneys
Don’t let a defective product injury cause you a financial and personal setback. You have the right to claim compensation to help you recover, and we’re ready to help you with that. To learn more about product liability claims or to get started on your case, schedule your initial consultation with Inserra Kelley Cooper Sewell now.