In all areas of life, we use and consume products on a daily basis. We are entitled to expect that the products that we use will be reasonably safe and that they will not cause us harm. However, sometimes it is the case that products cause injuries and claims against the suppliers and/or manufacturers and/or importers of defective products have to be made on behalf of both individuals and sometimes for large groups of people.

The Law

The introduction of the Consumer Protection Act in 1987 was hailed as the basis for ensuring the safety of consumers in the UK. The Act, which incorporated the European Product Safety Directive, was intended to make it easier to pursue a claim against a supplier or manufacturer or importer of a product that could be shown to have caused an injury. In the subsequent years the Act has been used many times to pursue claims against a wide range of Defendants, from large pharmaceutical companies to smaller independent manufacturers.

Defective products can include a whole range of things such as:-

1. Pharmaceuticals (medicines)

2. Bio-mechanical devices (e.g. Breast implants)

3. Cosmetic treatment (laser eye surgery, hair removal etc)

4. Consumer Products (from defective electrical goods to blood transfusions)

5. Environmental Health (food and chemical poisoning)

The purpose of the Act was provide added protection to consumers by imposing liability (legal fault) on the relevant party (be it the supplier, manufacturer or importer) for the defective product in question, without the Claimant having to prove negligence. It makes the process of making a claim a lot easier than it was before the Act. Previously, a person who was injured due to a defective product but, who had not himself purchased the product, would struggle in a claim as they were not a party to the original contract. Nowadays, if for example, a manufacturer of food products made a defective batch of pies, all those people who suffer injury (poisoning) could successfully pursue a claim. All that they would need to establish is that the goods were defective (i.e. the pie was bad), the Defendant manufactured the goods (the pie) and that the defective goods caused injury to the Claimant (the pie poisoned him/her).

Compensation claims for injuries caused by defective products would include compensation for the pain, suffering and loss of amenity (known as General Damages) as well as other specific items of expense or loss (known as Special Damages) such as lost earnings whilst off work injured, cost of medication/prescriptions, travel expenses, the cost or value of care and assistance provided by others whilst incapacitated etc. The claim would normally be dealt with by the supplier’s or manufacturer’s or importer’s  insurance company.