Marketing defect claims allege that a product lacked adequate warnings of non-obvious hazards or sufficient instructions for safe use. The product itself may be free of design and manufacturing flaws.
Adequacy is measured against the foreseeable user.
Alternative Names:
Warning Defect, Failure to Warn Defect
Why it Matters?
Warning claims survive where design and manufacturing claims fail, since a product manufactured to specification and reasonably designed may still carry a hazard requiring disclosure. That makes marketing defect the theory most likely to reach a jury and the one requiring the most attention. Causation is where the defense concentrates, because a plaintiff who did not read the existing warning cannot establish that a better one would have been heeded.
Frequently Confused with
Related terms
Frequently asked questions
Why do warning claims survive other theories?
Where does the defense concentrate?
