Personal Injury Law

Weight lifting personal injuries and product liability cases

By Ryan Bradley, Esq.

While we continue to work on a case involving a young man being injured using a weight lifting machine, I wanted to talk a little bit about other similar incidents, personal injury claims and product liability cases involving exercise equipment.

Every year, there are millions of sports related injuries in the United States. This shouldn't come as a surprise since participating in sports requires physical exertion and the chance for a genuine accident is high. Where a personal injury lawyer would get involved is in cases where somebody's negligence led to another's injury. If the case involves a defect in equipment that causes injury, it falls into the category of product liability law.

Last year there were over 400,000 injuries related to exercise or exercise equipment. Particularly dangerous, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's database, were weight lifting machines. They accounted for over 79,000 of these accidents. While many of these could be due to operator error, some may be due to the fact that a weight lifting machine has a dangerous design flaw. In these cases, a product liability lawyer should be contacted immediately to investigate.

If you are injured by faulty equipment and seek damages, the company may offer you a settlement. Make sure you have consulted with your attorney about your wishes if a settlement is offered. Some personal injury firms are more likely to suggest settling, but often the damage payout will be much less. It is not greedy to try and pursue higher rewards as punitive damages are what gets a company's attention and forces them to ensure their products are safe. Lives may be saved thanks to a personal injury lawsuit revealing a dangerous design flaw.

One specific case was Schmitt v. Dudley Sports Co. A automatic pitching machine was purchased by a high school and the pitching arm actually fired when the machine was unplugged and in storage causing serious injury to a student. There was no warning that the pitching arm may fire even when unplugged so the company was found to be negligent. This case likely caused other sports equipment companies to take notice and include more specific warning labels.

Aside from product liability, there are many other cases where an injury was not the fault of the person who sustained it. If you feel that you have been the victim of someone's else's negligence, contact a personal injury lawyer as soon as possible.

Full post as published by Missouri Accident Lawyer Blog on August 24, 2009 (boomark / email).