Product liability claims hold manufacturers responsible when a defective product causes injury. Ohio governs these claims by statute, recognizing defects in manufacturing, design, warnings, and representations. Michael D. Christensen Law Offices LLC investigates defective products and pursues manufacturers throughout Columbus, Ohio. Call 614-300-5000 for a free consultation.
You bought something and used it the way anyone would. A space heater, a ladder, a lithium battery, a saw, a car seat, a surgical implant. And it hurt you.
Then a strange thing happens. Someone suggests you must have used it wrong. The manufacturer’s customer service line offers a replacement if you’ll ship the old one back. An insurance adjuster asks a lot of friendly questions. And the product itself — the one piece of evidence that could prove what happened — starts drifting toward a dumpster, a repair shop, or a return label.
Product cases are won and lost on engineering, documents, and the physical item. They are also among the most expensive injury cases to prove, which is why a real evaluation matters before anyone tells you what you have. Attorney Mike Christensen has represented injured people and grieving families throughout greater Columbus, and these cases are handled on a contingency fee, with case expenses advanced by the firm.
What Is a Product Liability Claim in Ohio?
A product liability claim seeks compensation from a manufacturer or supplier when a defective product causes death, physical injury, emotional distress, or damage to property other than the product itself.
Ohio Abolished Common-Law Product Liability Claims
This is the fact that shapes everything else, and it is missing from nearly every article you will read about product liability. Ohio does not follow general American product liability law. It follows a statute — the Ohio Product Liability Act, at R.C. 2307.71 through 2307.80 — and that statute expressly states it is intended to abrogate all common law product liability claims or causes of action.
In plain terms: you cannot bring a common-law strict liability or product negligence claim in Ohio. The claim has to be pleaded and proved under the statutory framework. Generic advice written for other states can be actively misleading here, and a claim pleaded the wrong way can be dismissed on the pleadings.
What Counts as a Product
The statute defines the term, and it covers far more than retail goods. Consumer products, industrial machinery, vehicles and their components, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, building materials, tools, food, and component parts supplied to other manufacturers can all be products. Whether something qualifies is occasionally contested — services, real estate, and certain custom work sit outside the definition — and it is worth resolving early.
Harm Versus Economic Loss
The statute draws a line most people never hear about. It compensates harm — death, physical injury, emotional distress, and damage to other property. It treats pure economic loss differently, including damage to the defective product itself and lost value or lost profits.
If your dishwasher failed and flooded your kitchen but nobody was hurt, that is largely a warranty and contract problem rather than a personal injury case. If the same dishwasher caught fire and someone was burned, you are squarely in product liability territory. Many people call about the first situation and discover they have the second, or the reverse.
The Four Ways a Product Can Be Defective Under Ohio Law
Most articles list three. Ohio recognizes four, and they are not interchangeable — each has different elements, different proof, and different defenses.
1. Defective in Manufacture or Construction
Under R.C. 2307.74, a product is defective in manufacture or construction if, when it left the manufacturer’s control, it deviated in a material way from the design specifications, formula, or performance standards — or from otherwise identical units made to the same specifications.
The statute then says something powerful: a product may be defective in manufacture or construction even though its manufacturer exercised all possible care. That is strict liability in the truest sense. You do not have to prove carelessness. You have to prove the item deviated from what it was supposed to be.
These are the flawed weld, the contaminated batch, the missing fastener, the mis-torqued assembly, the unit that came off the line wrong. They are often the most provable claims, because you can compare the item that hurt you against the manufacturer’s own drawings and against other units.
2. Defective in Design or Formulation
Under R.C. 2307.75, a product is defective in design or formulation if, when it left the manufacturer’s control, the foreseeable risks associated with the design exceeded its benefits. The statute lists the specific factors on each side of that balance, including the likelihood and seriousness of harm, the availability of a safer alternative, the product’s utility, consumer awareness of the risk, and whether the design conformed to applicable public or private product standards.
Here nothing came off the line wrong. Every unit is exactly as intended — and the intention was unreasonably dangerous. The guard that was designed too small. The battery chemistry with no thermal runaway protection. The vehicle roof that crushes in a foreseeable rollover. The furniture that tips over on a child because it was never designed to resist tipping.
One provision drives these cases more than any other. The statute provides that a product is not defective in design or formulation if, at the time it left the manufacturer’s control, a practical and technically feasible alternative design was not available that would have prevented the harm without substantially impairing the product’s usefulness or intended purpose.
Read that in reverse and it becomes the roadmap. A design defect case in Ohio is, in practice, a case about proving a safer alternative design existed, was technically feasible, was practical, and would have prevented what happened to you. That is engineering work, and it is why these cases require qualified experts and real testing budgets.
The statute also contains limits worth knowing: inherent generic risks recognized by ordinary consumers generally do not make a product defective, and there are specific provisions addressing prescription drugs and medical devices with unavoidably unsafe aspects where adequate warnings were given.
3. Defective Due to Inadequate Warning or Instruction
Under R.C. 2307.76, a product is defective due to inadequate warning if, when it left the manufacturer’s control, the manufacturer knew or in the exercise of reasonable care should have known about a risk associated with the product, and failed to provide the warning or instruction a manufacturer exercising reasonable care would have provided — judged against the likelihood of harm and how serious that harm would be.
A warning is not adequate merely because it exists. Buried text, a warning that fails to convey the severity of the risk, a warning on packaging that is discarded before use, instructions that omit a critical step, and warnings in a language the intended user cannot read have all supported claims.
The post-marketing duty is where many strong cases live. The statute separately provides for defect based on inadequate post-marketing warning or instruction — where, at a relevant time after the product left the manufacturer’s control, the manufacturer knew or should have known of a risk and failed to provide the warning a reasonable manufacturer would have given.
That matters enormously, because manufacturers accumulate knowledge after a product ships. Complaints arrive. Warranty claims cluster. Field failure reports pile up. Adverse event reports get filed. A company that watched a hazard develop across hundreds of customer complaints and said nothing for three years faces a very different case than one that could not have known.
The statute also recognizes that a product is generally not defective for failing to warn about an open and obvious risk, or a risk that is a matter of common knowledge.
4. Failure to Conform to a Representation
Ohio separately recognizes a defect where the product did not conform, when it left the manufacturer’s control, to a representation the manufacturer made about it — even if the manufacturer did not act fraudulently, recklessly, or negligently in making that representation.
This theory is omitted from almost every general article about product liability because it does not appear in the standard national framework. It can be extremely useful. Marketing claims, spec sheets, owner’s manuals, safety ratings, load capacities, waterproof or flame-resistant claims, and advertised crash performance are all representations. When the product does not live up to what was promised and that gap caused the injury, the theory applies.
What You Have to Prove
Under R.C. 2307.73, a manufacturer is liable for compensatory damages on a product liability claim only if the claimant proves, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the product was defective under one of the four theories, that the defective aspect proximately caused the harm, and that the manufacturer designed, produced, or assembled the product in question.
Two of those elements are where cases are actually contested.
- Causation. Not simply that the product was defective and you were hurt, but that this defect produced this injury. Manufacturers routinely concede a design could have been better while arguing the defect had nothing to do with what happened.
- Condition at the time it left the manufacturer. Expect arguments about modification, alteration, removal of a guard, missed maintenance, unauthorized repair, and ordinary wear. Establishing the product’s history is part of the case.
Can You Sue the Store That Sold It? Ohio’s Supplier Rule
This is the question people ask most often, and most websites answer it wrong for Ohio.
Under R.C. 2307.78, a supplier — a distributor, wholesaler, or retailer — is generally not treated the same as a manufacturer. A supplier is subject to liability as if it were the manufacturer only when specific circumstances apply, including where the manufacturer is not subject to judicial process in Ohio, where the claimant will be unable to enforce a judgment because of the manufacturer’s insolvency, where ownership ties the supplier and manufacturer together, or where the supplier created or furnished the design.
Separately, a supplier can be liable for its own negligence — for example, where it altered the product, ignored a known hazard, or failed to pass along a recall notice.
Two practical consequences follow. First, do not assume suing the store solves your problem. Second, the exceptions matter enormously when the manufacturer is overseas, which is increasingly common with online marketplace purchases. Identifying the actual manufacturer, and whether it can be reached in an Ohio court, is one of the first things that has to happen in these cases.
Types of Product Liability Cases We Handle
Auto and Vehicle Defects
Airbags that fail to deploy or deploy without cause, seat backs that collapse, roofs that crush in rollovers, defective seat belts and retractors, fuel system fires, unintended acceleration, brake and steering failures, and defective child restraints. These claims frequently accompany an ordinary car accident claim, and the vehicle must be preserved before the insurer disposes of it as salvage.
Tire Defects
Tread separations, belt detachment, sidewall failures, and aged tires sold as new. Tire failure at highway speed frequently causes rollover and loss of control, and the failed tire itself is essential evidence that is routinely discarded at the scene or by a tow yard.
Truck and Commercial Vehicle Components
Brake system failures, defective underride guards, stability control failures, and coupling and rigging components. Our Columbus truck accident practice and its coverage of common truck accident types address where product claims overlap with carrier negligence.
Industrial and Construction Machinery
Missing or inadequate point-of-operation guarding, defective interlocks, unexpected startup, control system failures, aerial lifts that tip or drift, and machines designed so that a guard must be removed to perform routine tasks. These cases often involve workers, which raises a second set of claims addressed below.
Power Tools and Equipment
Saws without adequate blade guarding or available flesh-detection technology, nail guns without sequential trip triggers, grinders with defective wheel retention, ladders that collapse, and pressure vessels that rupture.
Lithium-Ion Batteries and Personal Mobility Devices
E-bikes, scooters, hoverboards, power tool packs, and portable chargers. Thermal runaway fires are fast, extremely hot, and frequently occur while a device charges indoors overnight. These cases commonly involve severe burn injuries, smoke inhalation, and property destruction, and often trace to uncertified cells or missing battery management systems in products sold through online marketplaces.
Household Appliances and Fire Hazards
Space heaters, dehumidifiers, air fryers, dryers, ranges, and electrical components that short and ignite. Fire cases require immediate scene preservation and origin-and-cause analysis, and the insurance carrier investigating your loss may be developing evidence that supports a product claim without telling you so.
Children’s Products and Furniture Tip-Overs
Cribs, bassinets, strollers, high chairs, inclined sleepers, magnets and small parts, and dressers and televisions that tip onto children. Tip-over incidents are among the most preventable serious injuries to young children and turn directly on stability testing and anchoring design.
Medical Devices and Implants
Hip and knee implants, surgical mesh, catheters, insulin pumps, CPAP devices, and monitoring equipment. These claims can overlap with, but are distinct from, medical malpractice — one targets the device manufacturer, the other targets a provider’s care. Determining which applies, or whether both do, requires review of the operative and device records.
Pharmaceuticals
Undisclosed side effects, contaminated batches, mislabeling, and pharmacy dispensing errors. Ohio’s statute contains specific provisions governing prescription drugs and medical devices, including how unavoidably unsafe aspects are treated when adequate warnings were provided.
Recreational Products
ATVs and UTVs with stability or rollover protection problems, bicycles and helmets, exercise equipment, playground equipment, and pools and pool drains. Motorcycle component failures are addressed alongside our motorcycle accident practice.
Food Contamination and Foreign Objects
Bacterial contamination, undeclared allergens, and foreign material in packaged food. Preserving packaging, lot codes, receipts, and any remaining product is critical, and public health investigation records can be valuable.
Chemicals and Toxic Exposure
Industrial solvents, cleaning agents, pesticides, and building materials — typically involving inadequate hazard warnings, deficient safety data sheets, or defective containers and dispensing systems.
Talk to a Columbus Product Liability Attorney Today
Call 614-300-5000 or 866-866-8058. Consultations are free and available 24/7. You pay no legal fee unless we win, and we advance case expenses.
You can also contact our Columbus office or request a free case evaluation online. Hablo Español.
What a Recall Does and Does Not Mean for Your Case
Two opposite misconceptions cost people cases, and both deserve a direct answer.
A Recall Does Not Win Your Case
A recall shows that a manufacturer or an agency identified a hazard. It does not establish that your specific unit was defective, that the recalled condition caused your injury, or that you are entitled to compensation. You still have to prove a statutory defect and causation.
What a recall does provide is leverage and a paper trail. Recall files often contain engineering analyses, failure rates, complaint counts, and internal timelines showing how long the company knew before it acted. That timeline can be worth more than the recall itself.
No Recall Does Not Mean No Case
Most defective products are never recalled. Agencies have limited resources and often act only after a pattern becomes undeniable. No recall is required to file a product liability lawsuit, and manufacturers routinely know about hazards long before any agency does.
Do Not Send Your Product Back for a Recall Remedy
This is the single most damaging mistake people make. Accepting a recall repair, replacement, or refund typically means surrendering the item that injured you. Once it is gone, so is the case. Get the product examined and preserved first.
Where to Check and Report
- Consumer products, appliances, furniture, and children’s products: the CPSC recall database, and you can report a hazard through SaferProducts.gov.
- Vehicles, tires, car seats, and vehicle equipment: NHTSA’s recall lookup, which searches by VIN, and NHTSA’s safety issue and complaint search.
- Drugs, medical devices, and food: the U.S. Food and Drug Administration maintains recall and adverse event reporting systems for each category.
Reporting is worthwhile regardless of whether you pursue a claim. Consumer reports are how agencies identify patterns, and a report you file may protect someone else. Reporting does not replace legal advice, and it does not preserve your evidence.
The Deadlines: Two Years, and a Ten-Year Outer Limit
Ohio product cases run on two separate clocks, and most articles mention only one.
The Statute of Limitations
Under Ohio Revised Code 2305.10, an action for bodily injury or a product liability claim generally must be brought within two years after the cause of action accrues. A wrongful death action under R.C. 2125.02 generally must be commenced within two years after the date of death.
The Statute of Repose
The same statute contains a separate outer limit. Ohio generally provides that no cause of action based on a product liability claim accrues against the manufacturer or supplier later than ten years from the date the product was delivered to its first purchaser or first lessee who was not using it as a component in another product. Limited exceptions exist, including for certain warranted useful lives, latent disease, and situations where a claim accrues near the end of the period.
The practical effect surprises people. A twelve-year-old table saw that injures you tomorrow may produce a claim that is timely under the two-year limitations period and still barred by the repose period. Because so many industrial machines, tools, and appliances stay in service for decades, this issue arises constantly and should be evaluated at the very first conversation.
Claims involving minors, latent disease, and claims against government entities follow different rules. Confirm the applicable dates with an attorney rather than assuming.
Preserving the Product Is the Most Important Thing You Can Do
If you remember nothing else from this page, remember this. In a product case, the product is the case.
Keep it. Do not repair it, alter it, clean it, test it, or return it. Store it somewhere dry and secure, exactly as it was after the incident, including broken pieces, fragments, and debris.
Keep everything that came with it. Packaging, manuals, warning labels, receipts, order confirmations, warranty cards, model and serial numbers, and lot or batch codes. Photograph the data plate and any labels before they degrade.
Do not let anyone take it. Not the manufacturer, not the retailer, not a repair technician, not an insurance adjuster, and not a recall program. If someone already has it — a hospital, a fire department, an employer, a body shop, an insurer — say so immediately, because a preservation demand can be sent before it is destroyed.
Understand what happens if it is gone. Cases without the product are harder and sometimes impossible. They are not automatically hopeless: exemplar units, design documents, recall records, prior incident evidence, and photographs can sometimes carry a case. But it is a materially weaker position, and it is entirely avoidable.
Courts also take destruction of evidence seriously in both directions. If a manufacturer or another party destroys relevant evidence after being put on notice, that carries consequences — which is why a preservation letter should go out early.
Evidence That Wins Product Liability Cases
- The product itself, examined and, where appropriate, tested by qualified experts under protocols both sides agree to.
- Exemplar units. Identical products used for comparison and destructive testing.
- Design documents. Drawings, specifications, tolerances, materials, and engineering change orders showing what the product was supposed to be.
- Testing and validation records. Including tests the manufacturer ran and, tellingly, tests it chose not to run.
- Prior incident and complaint data. Customer complaints, warranty claims, field failure reports, and prior lawsuits establishing notice.
- Internal communications. Emails and memoranda about known hazards, proposed fixes, and cost decisions.
- Regulatory filings. Agency correspondence, adverse event reports, and recall submissions.
- Industry and consensus standards. Whether the design met or fell short of applicable public or private product standards.
- Alternative design evidence. Competitor designs, patents, the manufacturer’s own later designs, and cost analyses.
- The chain of custody and service history. Purchase, ownership, maintenance, and repair records for the specific unit.
Much of this material exists only inside the manufacturer and comes out in discovery. That is one reason these cases require litigation more often than ordinary injury claims.
Defenses Manufacturers Raise
- “You misused it.” Manufacturers must account for reasonably foreseeable misuse, not only perfect use. The question is whether your use was foreseeable, not whether it matched the manual exactly.
- “The product was altered.” Modification, a removed guard, or an aftermarket part. Worth examining who removed it and whether the design made removal necessary for routine operation.
- “No feasible alternative design existed.” The statutory defense that drives design cases, met with engineering proof that a practical alternative was available.
- “The risk was open and obvious.” A recognized limit on the duty to warn, and frequently overstated.
- “We complied with all applicable standards.” Compliance is relevant evidence, not a complete answer. Minimum standards are a floor.
- “Something else caused this.” Alternative causation, blaming installation, maintenance, another product, or the user’s own conduct.
- “Too much time has passed.” The repose defense discussed above.
- Comparative fault. Under R.C. 2315.33, your recovery is reduced by your share of fault and barred only if you were more than 50 percent responsible.
If a Defective Product Injured You at Work
This situation is common and badly served by most legal websites, so it deserves its own explanation.
If a machine, tool, or piece of equipment injured you on the job, you likely have a workers’ compensation claim. That claim pays authorized medical treatment and a portion of lost wages regardless of fault, and it generally bars you from suing your employer.
It does not bar you from suing the manufacturer of the machine. The manufacturer is not your employer, and a product liability claim against it is a separate case that pays categories workers’ compensation does not touch — pain and suffering, full lost earning capacity, and loss of enjoyment of life.
The two claims interact in specific ways, including reimbursement rights against a third-party recovery, so they should be coordinated from the start rather than handled as unrelated files. Our workplace injury page covers the employment side, and our page on identifying every responsible party explains the broader analysis.
One practical warning: after a serious machine injury, the equipment is often repaired and returned to production within days. Tell your attorney immediately so a preservation demand reaches the employer before the machine is altered.
Class Actions, MDLs, and Why Your Case May Be Different
If you were injured by a widely sold product, you may receive a class action notice or see advertising about mass litigation. It is worth understanding what these are before you respond to anything.
- Class actions typically resolve economic losses shared across many purchasers — refunds, repairs, diminished value. They are usually a poor vehicle for serious personal injury, and participating can affect your individual rights.
- Multidistrict litigation consolidates many individual injury cases before one federal judge for pretrial proceedings. Your case remains your own, with its own facts and value, but it moves within a larger structure.
- Individual claims are filed and tried on their own. For someone with a permanent or catastrophic injury, this is frequently the right path.
The critical point is this: read any class notice carefully and have an attorney review it before you opt in, opt out, or accept a settlement payment. A modest class payment can extinguish a substantial personal injury claim, and by the time that becomes clear it is generally too late.
Compensation Available in a Columbus Product Liability Case
Our page on accident compensation covers these categories in more detail.
- Emergency treatment, surgery, hospitalization, and rehabilitation
- Future medical care, revision surgeries, and assistive equipment
- Attendant care, home modification, and long-term nursing costs
- Lost wages and diminished earning capacity
- Pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life
- Disfigurement, scarring, and permanent disability
- Emotional distress
- Loss of consortium for a spouse
- Damage to other property caused by the product
- Punitive damages where the manufacturer acted with flagrant disregard for safety, subject to Ohio’s statutory requirements and limits
Ohio does not cap economic damages. Noneconomic damages are limited in many tort actions under Ohio Revised Code 2315.18, with an important exception for permanent and substantial physical deformity, loss of use of a limb, loss of a bodily organ system, and permanent physical functional injury preventing independent self-care. Serious product injuries — amputations, severe burns, and catastrophic injuries — frequently fall within that exception. The cap does not apply to wrongful death actions.
Common Injuries in These Cases
- Amputations and crush injuries from machinery and power tools
- Severe burns from fires, explosions, thermal runaway, and chemical exposure
- Traumatic brain injuries from falls, collapses, and vehicle defects
- Spinal cord injuries and paralysis
- Eye injuries and blindness from projectiles and chemical splash
- Internal organ damage from implants, contamination, and toxic exposure
- Electrocution and electrical injuries
- Lacerations, degloving, and permanent scarring
If a Defective Product Killed Someone You Love
Product-related deaths are often sudden and preventable, and families are frequently told very little about why they happened.
In Ohio, a wrongful death claim is brought by the personal representative of the estate for the exclusive benefit of the surviving spouse, children, and parents, with other next of kin also able to recover. Compensable losses include lost financial support, lost services, funeral and burial expenses, and the family’s loss of society, companionship, care, and guidance. Our Columbus wrongful death attorney page explains how an estate is opened and who has authority to bring the claim.
In fatal product cases, evidence preservation is especially urgent. Fire scenes get cleared, vehicles get crushed, medical devices get discarded during autopsy or explant, and equipment gets repaired. A conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing, and it can preserve what the case will depend on.
How a Product Liability Case Gets Built
- Free consultation. We go through what happened, what product was involved, where it is now, and when it was purchased. That last question matters more than most people expect, because of the repose period.
- Immediate preservation. Letters go to anyone who may hold the product, the scene, or relevant records — manufacturer, retailer, employer, insurer, repair facility, or fire department.
- Identify the real manufacturer. Data plates, model and serial numbers, importer records, and corporate research establish who actually made the product and whether they can be reached in an Ohio court.
- Preliminary expert review. An engineer examines the product and gives an honest assessment of whether a provable defect exists before significant expense is incurred.
- Regulatory and public records research. Recall databases, complaint files, adverse event reports, and prior litigation involving the same product line.
- Choose the theory or theories. Manufacturing, design, warning, representation — or several, pleaded under the statute.
- Medical and damages workup. Treating physicians and, where warranted, life care planners and economists establish lifetime cost.
- Filing suit. Product cases usually require litigation, because the decisive evidence sits inside the manufacturer. Our page on filing a lawsuit explains what that process looks like.
- Discovery and testing. Document production, corporate depositions, protocol-governed inspection and destructive testing, and expert disclosures.
- Resolution. Many cases resolve once the defect and notice evidence is developed. We prepare every case as though it will be tried.
What to Do After a Defective Product Injury
- Get medical treatment and describe the product. Make sure the record reflects how the injury happened and what was involved.
- Preserve the product and everything with it. Do not repair, clean, test, alter, or return it.
- Photograph everything before it changes. The product, the scene, the labels, the data plate, and your injuries, from multiple angles.
- Write down what happened while it is fresh. What you were doing, how the product behaved, any sounds or smells, and who saw it.
- Locate proof of purchase and product identity. Receipts, order history, model and serial numbers, and lot codes.
- Keep the packaging and paperwork. Warnings and instructions on discarded packaging are frequently central to a failure-to-warn claim.
- Identify witnesses. Anyone who saw the incident or who used the same product and had problems with it.
- Do not give a recorded statement to the manufacturer or its insurer. And do not accept a replacement, refund, or settlement in exchange for the product.
- Report the hazard to the appropriate agency. It helps others and can contribute to a regulatory record.
- Call an attorney promptly. Both to preserve evidence and to evaluate the repose period before it becomes a problem.
What It Costs to Hire Us
Nothing up front. Product liability cases are handled on a contingency fee, meaning the attorney fee is a percentage of what is recovered. There is no hourly billing and no retainer, and if there is no recovery there is no attorney fee.
Case expenses matter more here than in most injury cases. Engineering experts, exemplar products, and destructive testing are costly, and the firm advances those expenses. That is also why an honest early evaluation is in everyone’s interest — including yours.
The consultation is free and is a real evaluation. If we do not believe a provable defect claim exists, or if the repose period bars it, we will tell you.
Why Choose Michael D. Christensen Law Offices
Attorney Mike Christensen has represented injured people and grieving families throughout greater Columbus, handling serious injury and wrongful death matters. Product cases reward attorneys who move quickly on evidence and who are candid early about what a claim will take to prove.
- Local and reachable. Our office is at 3341 W. Broad Street in Columbus, serving Franklin County and the surrounding counties.
- Fast evidence preservation. Demands go out before the product is repaired, returned, or destroyed.
- Ohio statutory framework, not generic tort law. Claims are evaluated and pleaded under the Ohio Product Liability Act.
- Overlapping claims screened. Workers’ compensation, premises liability, malpractice, and motor vehicle claims that may accompany a product case.
- Expenses advanced. Expert and testing costs are carried by the firm.
- Straight answers early. Including when the answer is that a case is not viable.
- Hablo Español. Spanish-language assistance is available.
- Available 24/7. No fee unless you win.
Free Consultation With a Columbus Product Liability Lawyer
If a defective product injured you or someone you love, call 614-300-5000 now. Keep the product. The consultation is free, the call is confidential, and you owe no fee unless we recover for you.
Columbus Product Liability Claims & Lawyer FAQs
What is a Product Liability Claim in Ohio?
A product liability claim seeks compensation from a manufacturer or supplier when a defective product causes injury or death. Ohio governs these claims entirely by statute under the Ohio Product Liability Act, which recognizes four types of defect: manufacturing, design, inadequate warning, and failure to conform to a representation.
Do I Have to Prove the Manufacturer Was Careless?
Not for a manufacturing defect. Ohio law states a product can be defective in manufacture or construction even though the manufacturer exercised all possible care. Design and warning claims work differently and require proof about foreseeable risks, available alternatives, and what the manufacturer knew or should have known.
What if the Product Was Recalled?
A recall helps but does not decide your case. It shows the manufacturer or a federal agency identified a hazard, and the recall file often contains valuable engineering and complaint data. You still must prove a statutory defect and that it caused your injury. Do not surrender the product for a recall remedy.
What if the Product Was Never Recalled?
You can still have a strong claim. Most defective products are never recalled, and no recall is required to bring a lawsuit. Manufacturers often know about a hazard long before any agency acts, and internal complaint records, warranty claims, and prior lawsuits frequently prove that knowledge.
How Long Do I Have to File a Product Liability Claim in Ohio?
Generally two years from the date of injury for a personal injury claim, and two years from the date of death for wrongful death. Ohio also has a separate ten-year outer limit measured from when the product was first delivered, which can bar a claim even within the two-year window.
What is Ohio's Statute of Repose for Products?
Ohio generally bars product liability claims that accrue more than ten years after the product was delivered to its first purchaser or lessee, with limited exceptions. It is different from the statute of limitations because it runs from delivery of the product, not from the date you were hurt.
What if I Threw the Product Away or It Was Destroyed?
You may still have a case, but it becomes much harder. The product is usually the most important evidence. If it was discarded, retained by a repair shop, kept by an insurer, or destroyed in a fire, tell an attorney immediately so efforts can be made to locate it or reconstruct the case.
What if I Was Not Using the Product Exactly as Intended?
You may still recover. Manufacturers are expected to account for reasonably foreseeable misuse, not just perfect use. Ohio applies comparative fault, so your recovery is reduced by your share of responsibility and barred only if you were more than 50 percent at fault.
Can I File a Claim if I Bought the Product Used or Secondhand?
Often yes. Ohio product liability claims do not require that you purchased the product directly from the manufacturer, and bystanders injured by someone else’s product can bring claims. The ten-year repose period measured from first delivery matters more here, since used products are frequently older.
Can I Sue a Foreign Manufacturer?
Sometimes, though it adds real complexity around jurisdiction and service abroad. This is one situation where Ohio’s supplier statute becomes important, because a manufacturer outside the reach of Ohio courts can shift responsibility onto the domestic distributor or retailer that sold the product.
What if a Machine at Work Injured Me?
You may have two claims. Workers’ compensation covers medical care and partial wage loss regardless of fault, and it generally bars suing your employer. It does not bar a product liability lawsuit against the machine’s manufacturer, which can pay pain and suffering and full lost earning capacity.
How Much is a Columbus Product Liability Case Worth?
Value depends on injury severity and permanence, lifetime medical and care costs, lost earning capacity, and the strength of the defect evidence. These cases are expensive to prove because they require engineering experts and testing, which is why viable claims tend to involve serious or permanent injuries.
Should I Join a Class Action or File My Own Case?
It depends on your injury. Class actions typically address economic losses shared by many buyers and often provide little for a seriously injured person. If you suffered significant physical harm, an individual claim usually protects your interests better. Review any class notice with an attorney before opting in or out.
What if a Defective Product Killed a Family Member?
The estate’s personal representative can bring a wrongful death claim for the benefit of the surviving spouse, children, and parents. Recoverable losses include lost financial support, lost services, funeral costs, and loss of companionship and guidance. Ohio’s noneconomic damage caps do not apply to wrongful death claims.
How Much Does a Columbus Product Liability Attorney Cost?
Michael D. Christensen Law Offices handles product liability cases on a contingency fee. There is no upfront cost, no hourly billing, and no fee unless we recover for you. Case expenses such as expert testing are advanced by the firm. The consultation is free and creates no obligation.
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