Product Liability Claims

Working with legal representation is essential to winning favourable outcomes in the product liability claims process. The legal team at Gerard Malouf & Partners is the answer you’ve been looking for. Our lawyers are accustomed to taking on some of the largest manufacturers in Australia, and winning big settlements for our clients.

In one case, our client, a floor tiler operating in New South Wales, was awarded a significant settlement from the manufacturer of the faulty knee pads he was using. The man had been using the knee pads at work when one of the pads rolled to the side as he was picking up a tile, causing substantial damage to his right knee. As a result, the man required surgery that was unsuccessful, leaving him permanently disabled and unable to perform physical work of any kind, including the repetitive lifting, bending and twisting required of a roofer. Ultimately, our client also wound up injuring his left knee as a result of having to overuse it. The totality of injuries included medial meniscus tear of the right knee posterior horn medial meniscus tear, effusion and quadriceps atrophy, subtotal medial meniscectomy and associated scarring, removal of loose flaps of articular cartilage by chondroplasty, distress, psychological injury and shock. The injuries left the man in significant physical, emotional and financial distress and looking for solutions. Luckily, he found Gerard Malouf & Partners.

Our team of legal professionals got to work, first determining that the knee pads had been manufactured for the purpose of long manual labor, as the man had been using them. Once it was established that the man had been using the product correctly when he was injured, and thus had a potential case, we began searching for evidence. To prove liability, we had the knee pads examined and tested by an expert. They were able to show the pad’s latex internal lining could be degraded by sweat and some of the chemicals used in tiling. This made the product unsafe for many of the jobs it was purportedly designed for, including the work our client was doing.

A letter of claim was made against the manufacturer of the product. They undertook their own internal investigations and denied liability in the matter. As a result, our team entered into legal proceedings on our client’s behalf. We gathered expert testimony on the product’s issues, as well as from the man’s doctor on the impact the injuries had had on his quality of life. After the testimony, the court ordered that the case be handled in mediation before proceeding any further, where we were able to secure our client a satisfactory payment that would allow him to live comfortably despite his injuries.