Here are the steps you need to take to make sure that you preserve the evidence in your claim and protect your rights:

1. Do not immediately contact the manufacturer or retailer. When consumers call in with a complaint, they’re typically told to return the product, packaging or proof of purchase. Doing that could literally destroy your case. The manufacturer or retailer isn’t going to offer to fairly compensate you for your injuries if they can just refund your money.
2. Preserve the entire product, even if it is only partially intact. If possible, preserve the packaging as well — and any proof that shows where you purchased the defective item. In particular, the instructions or labels that came with the product could be important down the line. Ideally, only you and your attorney should be able to access the preserved evidence.
3. Put anybody else with access to the product on notice. If, for example, the defective product is on your car, and the car is in your mechanic’s lot, let your mechanic know that the product needs to be preserved as-is, for now.
4. Keep track of your medical records. You’ll want to be able to show proof that the defective product led to significant injuries and how that affected your life.

When defective products cause serious harm, manufacturers and retailers often try to skirt their liability. Don’t make it any easier for them to deny their responsibilities by losing track of any important evidence.

Experts in the culinary field have offered a warning that anyone with a pressure cooker should heed, “Read the directions.” Before you start using a pressure cooker of any kind, you need to know a few things:

• In order to function, the pot produces steam that could exceed 300 degrees — which is more than enough to cause serious or fatal burns.
• Knowing how to properly handle the pot’s valve and what signs to look for if trouble starts to develop are essential.
• It’s wise to keep everyone who isn’t cooking away from the pressure cooker so that they don’t get in your way when you’re handling the pot. This includes children and pets.

Even then, however, you may not be assured that everything will operate properly. There are numerous reports of people being injured very badly even though they followed all the directions. In some cases, the pressure cookers themselves may be defective.

One woman suffered serious burns when a steam valve on her cooker didn’t operate properly. Another woman had her cooker’s whistle fly off and lodge in her skull.

If you suffer a serious injury while experimenting with your pressure cooker despite following all of the instructions, you may have a valid claim for damages through product liability laws. Such laws but the financial burden for injuries caused by defective products on the manufacturer, distributor or seller. An experienced attorney can help you understand you legal options.

What happens, though, when a product is outright dangerous and defective? If you’re injured because of a defective product sold by Amazon, who is responsible for your losses?

That’s a good question. For awhile now, the answer has largely been, “anybody but Amazon.” Now, however, that may be about to change.

Here’s what’s going on: Amazon has long maintained that it’s just an electronic platform that puts third-party sellers in touch with buyers. Similar to eBay or Craigslist, that would make the seller liable for any damages you incur due to a dangerous, defective or malfunctioning product. According to the company, this is unambiguous. It says, “Amazon makes clear in the conditions of use that third-party sellers sell products on the marketplace, and that those sellers, not Amazon, are responsible for the products.”

Except consumers clearly don’t realize that Amazon isn’t the retailer for many of the products it ships — and a lot of the items that they’re getting have led to a slew of injuries. One woman was blinded in her left eye when a defective dog leash snapped. A man was killed when a defective helmet popped off his head in an accident. A hoverboard caught fire and destroyed a home.

Initially, the courts sided with Amazon, but one persistent consumer took her appeal a bit higher. Now, a federal appeals court in Pennsylvania is sending shockwaves through the e-commerce industry because it says that Amazon is the de facto vendor of these items and can be held responsible for defects.

Product liability cases can be exceedingly complex — especially when the pace of technology and developments in commerce have exceeded the existing laws. It’s wise to get experienced assistance with a claim as soon as possible.

Six kids died over 10 years from tipped-over dressers. The company initially seemed responsive and recalled millions of the furniture items. They also paid out more than $96 million in settlements. But in 2019, when it became apparent that still another dresser made by the company failed to meet safety standards, Ikea chose to keep on selling their product.

It took them 16 weeks to cease sales. But no recall was announced until March of this year even though the dressers posed risk of “death or serious injury to children.”

Ikea’s head of product compliance issued a statement claiming Ikea was phasing out their Kullen dresser before the new safety standards were implemented.

The logistical challenges of the company are no solace to parents whose young children died after their dressers tipped over onto them.

Most product recalls are voluntary — including the prior two for the Ikea dressers. Companies negotiate the recall terms with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) after internally calculating any financial benefits of continued sales of a suspect product against the considerable liability and costs of a recall. They also have to factor in the intangible cost of appearing tone-deaf to the public when kids keep dying on their watch.

The fact that they first issued voluntary recalls and then dragged feet paints a troubling picture of the company’s views on the safety of their dressers.

If you have one of their three-drawer Kullen dressers in your home with young children, you can contact the company about a refund. If your child was injured by the furniture, you may want to explore your options to seek civil justice.

Well, think carefully about what you decide to purchase from Amazon. Over the last few years, Amazon customers (or their insurance companies) have tried to hold the retail giant accountable for numerous dangerous and defective products purchased through their site, from hoverboards that have exploded during charging and hair dryers that were so poorly made that they caught fire the first time they were used.

So far, there’s been little success. Amazon has firmly maintained that, for most items, it is merely an electronic platform that puts sellers and buyers in touch with each other. Even when it handles the shipment and fulfillment of an order, Amazon denies being an actual retailer. If it were an ordinary retail establishment, like Walmart or Target, it would be liable for the dangerous and defective products it sells.

This is particularly problematic because many of the sellers using Amazon are overseas manufacturers — and they will often dissolve overnight (to reappear under new names later) when there’s a problem with their products. The quality of many of those products can be questionable, at best, but victims of their defective products are often left without anybody to sue.

There are signs that the legal protections Amazon’s been able to use are failing, however. More courts are taking a closer look at the industry and individual case law is starting to chip away at the immunity Amazon’s managed to craft for itself.

If you’ve been the victim of a defective, dangerous product you bought online and you’ve suffered significant injuries and losses, find out what can be done to help you. Keep in mind that the law is constantly in flux — and every case is unique.