Product Liability

San Diego product liability attorneys explain types of product liability cases and Casey Gerry’s experience

Casey Gerry's San Diego product liability attorneysprovide legal counsel on a broad range of products liability cases, including automotive product liabilities, consumer products, over the counter medications, including supplements,medical devices, recreational vehicles, construction equipment, children’s products and many other categories.

Casey Gerry's product liability attorneys have played a leading role in holding manufacturers responsible for unsafe products they have placed on the market. We work closely with nationally recognized safety engineers in handling litigation against automobile manufacturers who place unsafe vehicles on the roads. We have represented numerous families in serious injury and wrongful death cases arising from vehicles whose design made them unstable and likely to roll over in sudden turns. Casey Gerry has handled automobile cases involving improperly designed seatbelts, which resulted in serious injury to occupants, or aggravated injuries to occupants in a vehicle.

In addition to automobile defect litigation, we have worked with clients throughout southern California and handled a large range of defective product cases including

• defective tools
• faulty golf carts
• motorcycles
• automobile side panels
• treadmills
• tires
• food items
• toasters
• stairs
• buildings
• scaffolding
• lift gates
• cranes
• ladders
• safety gates
• asbestos

and numerous other manufactured products that have been defectively designed.

Not long ago, partner and senior personal injury lawyer Gayle Blatt traveled to Oregon as the product liability lawyer for a United States Marine who had used a folding knife. When he was using it in the usual fashion, the knife folded on his finger, and amputated a portion of that finger. When he consulted with us, we asked product design experts to examine the design of the knife. Consulting experts agreed that the design was defective: when the knife was used in the manner intended, the blade would close, which could result in a severe injury to the user’s hand. The defendants refused any reasonable settlement, and the case went to trial in April 2006. The jury returned a verdict of $278,000 for our deserving client.

Ms Blatt also represented three adult children in an action against Sears for the death of their mother, who died in a rollover accident caused by a tire blowout. All four of the vehicle’s tires had been purchased and installed at Sears less than two weeks before the accident. Casey Gerry’s tire expert determined that although the tire was sound, careless installation resulted in a large cut in the tire carcass. When the vehicle left the installation bay it was a disaster waiting to happen. As the vehicle traveled at highway speed, the cut spread, the tire tore away from the rim and deflated instantaneously. Casey Gerry’s auto accident lawyer established that the installer had twice before cut a tire while installing it, that Sears was aware of this, and had continued to allow him to work. The settlement took into account the children’s injuries, and the family’s loss of a dear and valued mother and grandmother.

In a case involving a defective tire in the spring of 2005, a young woman in Riverside was driving her 1997 Ford Explorer equipped with Bridgestone Wilderness AT tires. She was driving on the interstate well within the legal speed limit when, without warning, the tread on one of tires tore and peeled away from the tire. Without the tread, the tire could not grip the road. The Explorer spun out of control and careened into the center median barrier at 60 mph. The violent impact totaled her vehicle, and seriously injured the driver. She was rushed to the hospital, where she required extensive treatment. Despite her doctors’ best efforts she continued to have serious physical and psychological injuries long after the collision. Her physical health, her psychological well-being, and her ability to work were significantly damaged by the collision and her injuries

Casey Gerry attorney Thomas Luneau filed suit on her behalf. He established that the tire’s manufacturers and the dealership that sold her the car were or should have been aware of the Wilderness AT tires’ defects and the risk they posed. Their failure to warn the purchaser and their sale of a product known to be defective constituted serious negligence. This deserving young woman received a settlement that covered her medical expenses past and future, compensation for her psychological suffering and her inability to work at her job.


Partners Robert Francavilla and Gayle Blatt handled the case of a young woman who went to sleep in the desert area one evening in her sleeping bag, and woke to find herself engulfed in flames. She suffered severe burns. Attorneys Blatt and Francavilla had the sleeping bag evaluated. On the basis of the testing, Casey Gerry product liability attorneys brought an action against the manufacturer. It was resolved recently in the victim’s favor, enabling this young woman to pay her medical expenses and for her rehabilitation, enabling her move to move forward in her life.

In April 2006 Robert Francavilla and Thomas Luneau settled a case after a trial that lasted five weeks. Their client was a young man who was working on a deck. While working he fell backwards and suffered serious injuries. The platform on which he was working did not have a proper protective guard. Our San Diego product liability lawyers brought an action against the manufacturer of the platform, and after five weeks of trial, the judge issued a decision awarding our client $1.6 million.

Casey Gerry plaintiffs lawyers recently resolved a product liability case after several years of litigation which involved false claims by the manufacturer of a lie detector. Casey Gerry demonstrated that the lie detector was no more effective than flipping a coin in determining whether a subject was lying. The device was used to coerce and intimidate three young boys, and to extract confessions that led to their being accused of murder, and held for months in Juvenile Hall. Their Casey Gerry attorneys showed that relying on this device violated their civil rights, and led to wrongful accusations of murder, which were extremely painful and disruptive to these innocent boys and their families.