What is strict product liability?

When a person gets sick as a result of exposure to asbestos, he or she can be entitled to compensation from the party responsible for the exposure. In some cases, this can be a property owner who failed to adequately warn people about asbestos in a building. Other times, the exposure was suffered when a person was at work and did not receive adequate protective gear or warnings from an employer about the risks associated with asbestos.

In many cases, however, asbestos cases are tied to specific products that contained the toxic mineral. In these situations, victims of an asbestos-related illness may have grounds to file a products liability lawsuit against the manufacturer of the dangerous product.

However, readers should be aware that this can be very a complicated process. Many asbestos cases involve allegations of negligence, which means that a party breached the duty to provide a safe product to consumers. This failure must also have led to an injury and damages in order for negligence claims to be legitimate.

Victims of an asbestos-related illness may rightfully assume that proving this negligence existed is extremely difficult, especially when the manufacturer of a product is a large corporation and the product was made decades ago. But this is where strict product liability would come in.

Strict product liability is a theory that allows people to recover compensation without having to prove actual negligence on the part of a manufacturer. If it can be established that the product manufactured by a company was unreasonably dangerous and caused an injury to someone using the product as it was intended, a strict liability claim could be effective.

Companies that manufactured asbestos-containing products are well aware of this theory and are prepared to defend themselves and try to avoid taking responsibility. This is why it can be vital to speak with an attorney who has a thorough understanding of asbestos litigation and personal injury claims. Legal representation can help victims aggressively pursue compensation and stand up to companies that are prepared to go to great lengths to deny accountability.