**Prospective clients may not obtain similar results. Amounts stated below are before deductions for fees, cost of attorneys and third party providers such as medical providers.**
Product Liability
Products liability litigation represents consumers’ first line of defense against injuries caused by defective products. Tens and thousands of Americans are injured each year as a result of negligently designed or defectively manufactured products.
We at The Haggard Law Firm have always been committed to representing innocent victims involved in product-related accidents. We have represented clients injured by products such as pool pumps, defective tires, football helmets, shoulder pads, beverage bottles, food products and orthopedic bone implants.
Products liability litigation deters businesses and corporations from putting dangerous products into consumers’ hands. In many ways, such litigation works better then government regulatory and study groups to quickly remove dangerous products from the marketplace, and compel redesign in compliance with stricter safety standards.
We focus on creating a safer consumer environment by protecting the public’s right to use and encounter products designed and made in conformity with strict standards and in fighting to obtain tougher standards when the defective nature of a product becomes known. Following is listing of products liability cases our firm has successfully tried.
PETERSON v. STA-RITE INDUSTRIES
$104 Million – Verdict, Product Liability / Pool pump entrapment.
A teenage boy was trapped underwater by the suction of a pool pump and nearly drowned. The jury found that product defects in the P2R single-horse-power suction pump, manufactured and distributed by Sta-Rite Industries, Inc, was responsible for the accident causing the victim to suffer irreversible brain damage. It was found that the pump was unsafe and that Sta-Rite Industries made no effort to change its design to make it less dangerous or to warn distributors about risks it created for swimmers. The $104 million verdict is the largest single personal injury jury verdict awarded in Florida’s history.
STEAD v RIDDELL
$5.3 Million – Verdict, Product liability.
Action against football helmet manufacturer for injuries sustained by a 16-year-old high school football player during game. Plaintiff was left a quadriplegic.
CARSON v. McDONNELL DOUGLAS HELICOPTER CORPORATION
$2.15 Million - Settlement, Product Liability / Helicopter Crash.
A 1969 Hughes OH-6A Army surplus helicopter sold to the Lee County Sheriff's Department crashed into the roof of a building in Ft. Myers seriously injuring its pilot. The pilot lost control the helicopter when the lateral control rod, a flight critical component, separated from its rod end due to fretting of the rod's aluminum threads. In 1996 the helicopter and its control rods had been refurbished by a third party and modified pursuant to a Service Notice published by McDonnell Douglas in 1989. Plaintiffs alleged that the nature of the modification exacerbated the tendency of the threads in the joint to fret (wear away). Plaintiffs alleged that this defective modification caused the component separation and resulting crash.
THOMAS v. GENERAL MOTORS, ET AL
$1.6 Million – Verdict, Product liability.
Action by a plaintiff bus passenger for neck injuries sustained when he was flung from his seat and struck a metal support pole in the bus.