Can I sue for a dangerous product that caused injury?

For a design defect to support a product liability lawsuit, the leashes needed to act in a defective way. The leashes here did exactly as intended by keeping your pets on them until the other dog owner unleashed them. This was done after your pet dogs charged away from you, according to your post.

A product failure might lead to an injury for which a lawsuit can be brought. As to the leash getting twisted with another leash in your case, that situation happened because of how you used the leashes, not because of any product failure.

Wrong warnings can support a claim for strict or negligent product liability. Did you need to be warned that the leash might get twisted if you had two dogs together on two different leashes? I would say no. That seems to be common sense for which no warning to you is needed by the product maker.

Check with a lawyer if you need to. Find one in your locale to discuss more of the details if there is more to your story.

Good luck to you.

God bless.

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I don't think you have a case. Look at all the fine print that comes with any leash you buy. You were the one who had control of the leashes at the time of the incident. Getting tangled up in a dog leash and get hurt is not that uncommon, and it is ultimately your responsibility to maintain control of your animals at all times. The fact that it occurred when your dogs took off after another dog is not a fact in your favor.

Often times, it is difficult to determine whether a product is defective or dangerous. You seem to be claiming that the leashes are defectively designed in that they caused harm during their reasonably foreseeable use. Words like defective, dangerous, and reasonable are moving targets.

Put yourself in the position of a juror on your case. Bear in mind that the juror already doesn't want to be there and blames you for taking up his/her time. Now, would you award damages for the injuries that you claim? There is a lot of subjectivity involved in such a claim. It's not like a line of cars that explodes on impact.

I don't think I'm telling you what you want to hear. It does not mean that another lawyer might see it differently. Good luck.

Dennis Phillips, Esq.
Florida personal injury law
Negligence is no "accident" (TM)
www.inawreck.com