While strict liability often applies to product defect cases, negligence claims remain an important legal theory for holding manufacturers accountable. Negligence focuses on the manufacturer's conduct—proving they failed to exercise reasonable care in designing, producing, or selling their products.

What Is Product Negligence?

A product negligence claim requires proving the manufacturer owed you a duty of reasonable care, the manufacturer breached that duty through some act or omission, the breach caused your injury, and you suffered damages.

Unlike strict liability, negligence requires proving the manufacturer did something wrong—that they failed to act as a reasonable manufacturer would under the circumstances.

The Duty of Care

Manufacturers owe consumers a duty to exercise reasonable care throughout the product lifecycle. This includes using reasonable care in design to create reasonably safe products, implementing adequate quality control during manufacturing, testing products to identify potential hazards, providing appropriate warnings about known risks, and monitoring products post-sale and responding to discovered dangers.

The standard is what a reasonably prudent manufacturer would do, not perfection. However, manufacturers must keep current with industry knowledge and safety standards.

Proving Breach of Duty

Breach of duty can be established through evidence that the manufacturer ignored known safety risks, failed to follow industry safety standards, cut corners in design or production, inadequately tested the product, ignored customer complaints about safety issues, or failed to implement feasible safety improvements.

Internal documents, emails, and meeting notes can reveal what the manufacturer knew and what decisions they made. Discovery in litigation often uncovers evidence of negligent decision-making.

When Negligence Is Necessary

Some situations require negligence claims rather than strict liability:

Some states limit strict liability for certain products or defect types. Design defect claims may require negligence proof in some jurisdictions.

Service-related injuries from product installation, repair, or maintenance typically require negligence proof rather than strict product liability.

Punitive damages generally require proof of egregious conduct beyond mere defect. Negligence evidence supports claims for punitive awards.

Negligence Per Se

When manufacturers violate safety statutes or regulations, that violation can establish negligence per se. Violation of the law is treated as negligence without further proof of unreasonable conduct.

Relevant regulations include Consumer Product Safety Commission standards, FDA requirements for drugs and medical devices, NHTSA vehicle safety standards, industry-specific safety regulations, and state consumer protection laws.

Res Ipsa Loquitur

The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur ("the thing speaks for itself") can help prove negligence when direct evidence is unavailable. If the accident wouldn't normally happen without negligence and the manufacturer had exclusive control over the product, negligence may be inferred.

This doctrine recognizes that some accidents are so clearly the result of negligence that direct proof shouldn't be required.

Combining Theories

Product liability cases often assert both strict liability and negligence claims. Pursuing multiple theories maximizes your chances of recovery and provides alternative paths to compensation if one theory fails.

Negligence claims also allow recovery of punitive damages in cases of egregious misconduct, which may not be available under strict liability alone.

Evidence in Negligence Cases

Building a negligence case requires evidence of what the manufacturer did or failed to do. Valuable evidence includes internal company documents and communications, design and testing records, quality control procedures and failures, industry standards and the manufacturer's compliance, prior complaints, accidents, and lawsuits, and expert testimony on reasonable manufacturer conduct.

Discovery in litigation—depositions, document requests, and interrogatories—often reveals the negligent conduct underlying product defects.

Pursuing Your Claim

If you've been injured by a defective product, both strict liability and negligence theories may apply. An experienced product liability attorney can evaluate the evidence, determine the strongest legal theories, and pursue all available paths to compensation.

Preserve the product, document your injuries, and consult an attorney promptly to protect your rights.