What’s Your Case Worth? (877) 541-1203
When you buy a product, you expect it to work. You certainly don’t expect it to injure you. Yet, every year, thousands of people are harmed by items they trusted to be safe—a car with faulty brakes, a medical device that fails, a household appliance that catches fire.
If this has happened to you, you’re likely facing mounting medical bills, time off work, and the stress of recovery. You may be wondering: Who is responsible for this? Can I hold the company accountable?
The answer is yes. Under Missouri law, manufacturers, designers, and sellers have a legal duty to ensure their products are safe. When they fail, and you get hurt, you have the right to seek compensation for your injuries. But taking on a large corporation and its team of lawyers is a formidable challenge, filled with legal hurdles and tight deadlines.
At TopDog Law, we connect people like you with an experienced Kansas City, MO product liability lawyer who understands these challenges. If a defective product has injured you or a loved one in Kansas City, call (888)778-1197 for a free, no-obligation case evaluation to understand your options.
A product liability claim is the legal action you take to hold a company responsible for the harm its dangerous product caused. In Missouri, these claims generally fall into three categories, and you don’t necessarily have to prove the company was careless—just that its product was dangerously defective.
In many Missouri product liability cases, the concept of “strict liability” applies. This is a huge advantage for an injured person.
Strict liability focuses only on the product itself. Was it defective and unreasonably dangerous when used as intended? Did that defect cause your injury? If the answer to both is yes, the manufacturer can be held responsible, regardless of how careful they were during production. We don’t have to prove they knew about the danger or made a mistake. The fact that the dangerous product reached you is enough.
A negligence claim, on the other hand, focuses on the company’s behavior. Here, we must prove the company failed to act with reasonable care. Did they know the design was flawed but sell it anyway? Did they skip safety checks on the assembly line to save money? Proving negligence requires showing the company breached its duty to keep you safe, and that breach directly led to your injuries.
An experienced attorney will analyze the specifics of your case to determine the strongest path forward, whether it’s through strict liability, negligence, or both.
When a defective product rewrites your life, the goal of a legal claim is to secure compensation that covers every loss you’ve suffered. Missouri law divides these losses into different types of damages.
These are the clear, calculable financial losses that have piled up since your injury. We work to document every single expense to show the true financial burden.
Some losses don’t come with a receipt. These damages are meant to compensate for the personal, non-financial ways the injury has diminished your quality of life. In most product liability cases in Missouri, there are no caps on these damages.
In rare cases where a company’s behavior was particularly outrageous, it’s possible to seek punitive damages. These are not about compensating you for a loss; they are intended to punish the defendant for extreme misconduct and to send a clear message that such behavior will not be tolerated.
Under Missouri law, this requires clear and convincing evidence that the defendant intentionally caused harm or acted with a “deliberate and flagrant disregard for the safety of others.” The Missouri Supreme Court has affirmed that the right to have a jury determine these damages is protected, striking down attempts to place arbitrary caps on them.
What happens if the defense argues you were partially to blame for your own injury? Missouri uses a system called “pure comparative fault.”
This means you can still recover compensation even if you are found to be partly at fault. Your total award is simply reduced by your percentage of fault.
Kansas City’s dynamic economy, with its strong presence in manufacturing and healthcare, means a constant flow of new products. Unfortunately, this also creates opportunities for dangerous defects to reach local families.
As a hub for major auto manufacturers like Ford and General Motors, the Kansas City region is deeply tied to the automotive industry. This extends to a vast network of parts suppliers, where a single error can have far-reaching consequences.
From children’s toys to kitchen appliances, the products we bring into our homes should be safe. Common claims arise from:
Successfully holding a company accountable requires more than just showing you were injured. You must build a solid case that proves specific legal elements.
To win a product liability claim in Missouri, we generally must establish four key points:
Yes, and it is absolute. Missouri law sets a strict time limit, called a statute of limitations, for filing a product liability lawsuit.
For most claims involving personal injury from a defective product, you have five years from the date the injury happened or was discovered. While five years might sound like plenty of time, it passes quickly when you are focused on recovery. Waiting too long seriously damages your case as evidence disappears, witnesses move, and memories fade.
If you miss this deadline, you lose your right to seek compensation forever. The court will dismiss your case, no matter how strong the evidence is.
You do not need to be the original buyer to have a valid claim in Missouri. If you were using the product, or were even an innocent bystander hurt by it (for example, a passenger in a car with defective airbags), you may have the right to seek compensation.
Possibly. While the age of a product can add challenges to a case, it doesn't automatically disqualify it. If the defect was present from the moment it was manufactured, you may still have a strong claim. An attorney can evaluate the specifics of the product and the incident.
This can complicate your case. The manufacturer will almost certainly argue that your modification—not their original defect—is what caused the injury. However, if the modification was foreseeable or did not affect the part of the product that failed, you may still be able to recover compensation.
Liability can extend to multiple parties along the "chain of distribution." This includes the company that designed the product, the factory that manufactured it, the wholesaler or distributor, and even the retail store that sold it to you.
This is a difficult but not always impossible situation. It may be possible to pursue a claim against the defunct company's insurer or a successor company that purchased its assets and liabilities. An attorney can investigate whether other parties in the chain of distribution, like the distributor or retailer, can be held responsible.
An injury from a defective product can turn your life upside down, leaving you with physical pain, emotional stress, and financial strain. You should not have to carry this burden alone. The network of attorneys at TopDog Law is ready to help you understand your rights and hold negligent corporations accountable.
If you are ready to explore your legal options, TopDog Law will connect you with a local Kansas City, MO personal injury lawyer to review your case. For a free, confidential consultation, call (888)778-1197 today.
