kenneth ross

Foreign manufacturers sometimes intentionally or unintentionally cut corners on safety and quality because they are less likely to be held liable in the U.S. for problems created by their products. U.S. manufacturers who buy from foreign companies must alter their relationships with such manufacturers to account for this possibility and enhance the safety of their products to protect themselves better if problems do occur.

Manufacturers, retailers, and regulators have been working to improve product safety and make recalls more effective. This has been especially important for online retailers who have additional ways to directly contact their customers.

Recalls can create huge problems for manufacturers and product sellers. They can generate new product liability lawsuits that are harder to defend, involve a significant financial cost to implement, and create reputational problems with consumers and retailers. Manufacturers must carefully design a recall or other corrective action that is as effective as possible and adequate under the circumstances. Various government entities are issuing new requirements that can help with these efforts.

Even though warnings and instructions are not followed by all product users, they are important for product safety and product liability defensibility. Manufacturers must decide how safe to design their products and when they can also rely on warnings and instructions to make the product safe.

Customer service, before and after sale, is one of the most important functions that must be performed by a manufacturer or product seller. It is also one of the riskiest. Obtaining no information, inadequate information, wrong information, misleading information, or harmful information can make it difficult to evaluate future risk, meet your regulatory obligations, and defend a product liability lawsuit.

Manufacturers need to understand their legal responsibilities when analyzing post-sale incidents, injuries, and lawsuits so they can argue that they met their statutory reporting responsibilities.

Manufacturers should understand product liability law and consider it pre-sale when they design and manufacture their products and after sale when they deal with potential product safety problems reported to them by consumers. Doing so will result in safer products and, if there is a lawsuit, a better defense.

How does a manufacturer comply with its duty to warn, given the number of people in the U.S. who do not read English or any language? Does the law require multilingual labels or safety symbols, and when is it a good idea to include them?

Recalls are a major contributor to product liability incidents and lawsuits, interactions with government safety agencies, disputes with suppliers and product sellers, and negative publicity with the buying public. New guides have recently been issued that can help a manufacturer and product seller to better understand how to prepare for and implement an effective recall.

Safety management programs are necessary to help a company make safe products and monitor safety for products in use. The CPSC has provided lots of guidances and mandates over the years on what constitutes an adequate program. These guidances are potentially useful to those companies seeking to establish a CPSC-compliant safety program and should be considered as part of the program development process.