Tupelo Product Liability Lawyer
Langston & Lott, PLLC Product Liability
Langston & Lott, PLLC, represents injured people across Northeast Mississippi, and our Tupelo personal injury attorneys take on claims where a product, not a person, caused the harm. When a tool, vehicle part, appliance, or medication fails, our product liability lawyer in Tupelo, MS can trace that failure back to the company that designed, built, or sold it.
You do not have to know what went wrong inside the item before you call. Our lawyers will review what happened, examine what is left of the product, and tell you plainly whether a claim is worth bringing. Call (662) 728-9733 for a case review.
What Our Firm Brings to a Dangerous Product Case
Product liability cases turn on engineering review, product testing, and long document disputes with national manufacturers. Since 1964, Langston & Lott, PLLC has handled catastrophic injury and complex litigation across Northeast Mississippi. Our lawyers have taken on drug and device makers, equipment manufacturers, and the insurers behind them.
That work reaches beyond a single courtroom. Our firm has served on steering committees in multidistrict litigation coordinating claims against national manufacturers, and has taken lead roles in class action litigation arising from catastrophic incidents.
Our results include a $350,000 products liability settlement and a $203,000 mass tort settlement. Results may vary. Prior case outcomes do not guarantee similar results.
A defective product attorney in Tupelo from our team prepares the file for a Lee County jury from the first week, because a manufacturer measures a claim by how ready it is to be tried.
If you are weighing whether to bring a claim, ask us to look at it before anything happens to the product. Call (662) 728-9733 for a case review.
Do I Have a Tupelo Product Defect Claim?
A product liability claim requires proof that the item was defective when it left the company’s control and that the defect caused the injury. Under Miss. Code Ann. Section 11-1-63, the evidence must also show that the defect rendered the product unreasonably dangerous to the user or consumer.
Mississippi’s statute sets out four defect categories. Nearly every claim we review fits one of them:
- Manufacturing Defects: The unit deviated in a material way from the maker’s own specifications, such as a weak weld on a trailer hitch or a cracked bracket on a hunting stand.
- Design Defects: The item was dangerous before the first one was built, such as an all-terrain vehicle that rolls on a mild slope or a space heater with no tip-over shutoff.
- Warning or Labeling Defects: The item works as intended, yet the label or manual leaves out a hazard, such as a chemical cleaner sold without ventilation directions.
- Express Warranty Defects: The product failed to conform to an express warranty or to other factual representations the company made about it in advertising, packaging, or instructions.
Design claims carry the heaviest burden. Section 11-1-63(f) requires proof that the maker knew or should have known of the danger, and that a feasible alternative design existed that would have prevented the harm without impairing the product’s usefulness.
What the Mississippi Products Liability Act Covers
Section 11-1-63 reaches any action for damages caused by a product, whether the claim is framed as strict liability, negligence, or breach of warranty. The Mississippi Supreme Court held in Elliott v. El Paso Corporation that the Act is the exclusive remedy for a product defect claim, so a separate negligence count built on the same defect is absorbed into it.
A narrow set of claims still stands on its own: fraud and misrepresentation are not defect claims, and neither is a claim for breach of the implied warranty of merchantability under Miss. Code Ann. Section 75-2-314 requires that goods sold by a merchant be fit for their ordinary purpose.
How Long Do You Have to File a Mississippi Product Liability Claim?
A Mississippi product liability claim generally must be filed within three years, under Miss. Code Ann. Section 15-1-49. That clock usually starts on the date of the injury, and a claim filed after it closes is barred, no matter how strong the proof is.
Section 15-1-49(2) adds a discovery rule for latent injury or disease, meaning an injury that is not identified until long after the product was used. Under that rule, the claim does not accrue until the injured person discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, the injury. That matters most in medication and implanted device cases, and you should not assume it covers your situation.
How Do You Prove a Product Liability Case?
A dangerous product lawyer in Mississippi builds proof from the item and the company’s own paperwork, not from memory at the moment. Our lawyers preserve the product first and send written notice to the seller and the maker so that nothing is repaired, resold, or shipped back to the vendor.
Step one is collecting proof. The following materials cover most product cases:
- The Product Itself: Preserve it as it is, and keep every broken component, the packaging, and the instructions.
- Purchase Records: Keep receipts, warranty documents, and the model, serial, and lot numbers that trace the production batch.
- Medical Documentation: Treatment records from North Mississippi Medical Center or another provider show how the product failure caused the injury.
- Company Files: Design revisions, test results, complaint logs, and earlier claims surface during discovery.
- Independent Engineering: An engineer we retain takes the item apart and explains what failed.
Ask our office to begin that work while the product is still in your hands.
What Compensation Can I Pursue After a Defective Product Injury?
You can pursue payment for what the injury has cost you and for what it has taken from your daily life. Our lawyers price a file by looking forward as well as backward, because an amputation, burn, or head injury changes costs long after the case ends.
Compensation in a defect case covers both bills and daily losses. A claim may seek payment for:
- Medical bills, surgeries, and future care
- Lost wages and benefits
- Reduced ability to earn
- Physical pain, scarring, and permanent limits
- Emotional distress
Miss. Code Ann. Section 11-1-65 also permits punitive damages, which punish conduct rather than repay a loss, where a company acted with actual malice, gross negligence showing willful, wanton, or reckless disregard for the safety of others, or actual fraud. That conduct must be proved by clear and convincing evidence. Mississippi then caps the award on a scale tied to the defendant’s net worth, topping out at $20 million for a company worth more than $1 billion.
What if My Loved One Died Due to a Defective Product?
Your family can bring a wrongful death claim in place of the case the person could have filed. Miss. Code Ann. Section 11-7-13 names who may sue: a surviving spouse, child, parent, or sibling, or the personal representative of the estate, meaning the person a court appoints to act for someone who has died.
One action covers everyone entitled to recover, so relatives do not end up filing against each other. A fatal product case may seek compensation for burial expenses, the financial support the person would have provided, and the loss of care and companionship.
What Happens When One Dangerous Product Injures Many People?
When a defective product harms many people at once, courts may combine related lawsuits so that common issues involving the product’s design and the manufacturer’s knowledge can be addressed together.
Under 15 U.S.C. Section 2064, the Consumer Product Safety Commission may direct a company to notify consumers and offer a repair, replacement, or refund for a dangerous product.
Federal recall records can show when the manufacturer first learned about the hazard. The agency keeps them in its public recall database. Products sold to large numbers of consumers include:
- Prescription and over-the-counter medications
- Implanted medical devices and surgical hardware
- Recalled vehicle parts, tires, and airbags
Grouping does not fold your injury into someone else’s, so your medical proof stays your own, and so does any recovery.
Product Liability Claims Across Mississippi
Our work does not stop at the Lee County line. We handle product liability claims across Mississippi, including the Golden Triangle communities of Starkville, West Point, and Columbus, and the Delta counties to the west.
The parties named in the lawsuit can affect where the case proceeds. Section 11-1-63(h) limits a seller that did not manufacture the product: a retailer answers for a defect only where it exercised substantial control over the aspect that caused the harm, altered the product, or knew of the defective condition.
If that retailer is dismissed, an out-of-state manufacturer may seek to transfer the lawsuit to federal court.
Device claims add a layer, because 21 U.S.C. Section 360h allows the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to order a maker to notify patients and, in some cases, to repair or replace the device.
What to Do After a Defective Product Injury
Step one is getting medical treatment, and step two is preserving the product that caused the injury. Do not return the product to the store, mail it to the manufacturer, or allow a warranty program to swap it out, because no one can examine what the company already has.
A few early steps protect a claim more than anything done later. Start with these:
- Store the product, its parts, and its packaging somewhere dry
- Photograph the item, the setting, and your injuries
- Write down the model, serial, and lot numbers
Then call our office before you speak with a claims adjuster or sign a replacement offer. Signing a warranty settlement can limit your right to bring an injury claim later.
FAQs: Product Liability Lawyer in Tupelo, MS
These are questions people ask once they have decided to look into a claim. Answers here are general, and the details of your situation may change them.
Yes. A recall can strengthen your claim because it shows the company already knew about the danger. It also affects when the company had notice, so let us know immediately if you received a recall letter and continued using the product afterward.
You may still have a case. Photos, receipts, model numbers, repair records, and other units from the same production run can carry a claim, and federal recall databases sometimes show the same failure in other households. Bring us whatever you still have, including the box it came in.
No. Mississippi law protects users and bystanders, not only the purchaser, so a claim can belong to a guest, a passenger, an employee, or a child hurt by something a relative bought. What matters is that you were a foreseeable user of the product, not whose name is on the receipt.
Possibly. Companies must account for uses they can reasonably foresee, so a common but unlisted use does not automatically end a claim. Whether your use was foreseeable is a fact question, and it turns on how the product was marketed and what the company knew about the way people were using it.
Yes. A separate claim covering your workplace benefits does not stop you from also pursuing the company that designed, built, or sold the equipment that hurt you. The two move at once without canceling each other, and the product case can cover losses that workplace benefits do not pay for
Talk to a Tupelo Product Liability Lawyer
The answer in a defect case usually sits inside the item itself, which is why what is left of the product matters more than anyone’s account of what happened. Our Tupelo office on South Front Street is a short drive from the Lee County courthouse, and a case review costs nothing whether or not you hire us.
Call Langston & Lott, PLLC at (662) 728-9733 and tell us what happened.
Clinton Martin,, Personal Injury Lawyer
in Tupelo
Contact Langston & Lott today to learn how we can support you in seeking the closure and compensation necessary to move forward. Contact a Tupelo product liability lawyer at (662) 728-9733. We’ll get through this together.
Tupelo Office Location
513 N Gloster
Tupelo, MS 38804
(662)-728-9733
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