Defective Equipment Injury Claims

Why an equipment claim is often the stronger one

Most work injury claims against a company require proving that company failed to take reasonable care. Product liability frequently does not. In most states a claim can be brought on a strict liability basis: you prove the product was defective when it left the manufacturer and that the defect caused the injury. Whether anyone was careless is beside the point.

That is a materially lower bar, and it explains why an equipment claim is often more provable than a negligence claim arising from the same accident. It also explains why manufacturers defend these cases on the defect itself rather than on conduct.

The two theories can run together and are frequently pleaded together — see product liability vs negligence.

The three kinds of defect

Product claims are built on one or more of three theories, and identifying which applies shapes the evidence a case needs.

• Design defect — the product was unsafe as designed, so every unit shares the flaw. Proving it usually means showing a safer alternative design was available and practicable at the time. An unguarded nip point, a machine that can cycle with a hand in the die area, or an interlock trivially defeated all fall here.
• Manufacturing defect — the design was sound but this particular unit departed from it. A flawed weld, a substituted component, a batch out of specification. Narrower, but often clearer to prove where the failed part survives.
• Failure to warn — the product was reasonably designed and built, but was supplied without adequate instruction or warning about a hazard the maker knew or should have known about. This includes inadequate manuals, missing hazard labelling, and safety data sheets that understate a risk.

It is rarely only the manufacturer

The chain of distribution matters, because in many states liability runs along it. Depending on the state and the facts, a claim may reach the manufacturer of the whole machine, the maker of a component that failed, an importer, a distributor or dealer, a company that rebuilt or refurbished the equipment, and the lessor where the machine was hired rather than owned.

This matters practically. Where a manufacturer is overseas, dissolved or beyond the reach of the court, a claim may still be viable against a domestic importer or distributor who put the product into the market.

It also matters where the failed item is not the machine at all. Protective clothing that did not perform to its rating, respirators that failed, defective lifting equipment and failed fall-arrest components are all product claims in their own right, against makers who have nothing to do with the employer.

Modification, misuse, and the argument that runs both ways

The defence in most equipment cases is that the machine was safe when supplied and something happened afterwards: a guard was removed, an interlock bypassed, maintenance neglected, or the machine used for something it was never intended to do.

A manufacturer generally is not liable for a substantial modification it neither made nor could foresee. But the same facts frequently support the opposite conclusion. If a guard was easy to defeat, and defeating it was the predictable consequence of how the machine actually had to be operated to keep production moving, the design is in question rather than the operator. Manufacturers are expected to anticipate foreseeable misuse, not only correct use.

Where a guard was removed by a maintenance contractor rather than by the employer, that is a separate claim again — see machinery injury claims and third-party work injury claims.

Age, and the deadline most people have never heard of

Two separate time limits apply to a product claim. The ordinary statute of limitations runs from the injury. A statute of repose — which many states have for products — runs from the date the product was first sold, and can extinguish a claim before the injury even happens.

The periods vary considerably between states, and whether one applies at all depends on the jurisdiction and the product. Age also invites the argument that wear, modification or poor maintenance caused the failure rather than an original defect.

Neither point is automatically fatal. A design defect present at manufacture remains a design defect at any age, and a failure-to-warn duty can attach to hazards a manufacturer learned about long after the sale.

The evidence disappears first

Equipment claims are lost in the first fortnight more often than in court. The machine is repaired, the failed component is scrapped, the leased item goes back to the hire company, and the maintenance file is overwritten.

A written preservation request — sent early, to everyone who might control the equipment, and naming the specific machine, the specific parts and the specific records — is the single most valuable step available in the first week. A general request to "preserve everything" is easy to comply with badly.

• The machine itself, in its post-accident condition, before repair or return.
• The failed component, retained separately even if the machine is returned to service.
• Operating manuals, the original specification, and the safety documentation supplied with it.
• Maintenance, inspection and repair history for that specific unit.
• Modification records, and any record of a guard or interlock being removed or bypassed.
• Purchase, lease and delivery documents establishing who supplied it and when.
• Any prior complaint, near miss, recall notice or service bulletin affecting the model.
• Photographs taken before anything was moved, including of the guarding as found.