As a mother, keeping your child or children safe will likely be your priority. If a product comes out that can harm your youngster, and you allow them to use it because you’re not aware that it’s dangerous, you’ll probably be very upset about that.
You might decide to pursue a product liability lawsuit. However, you might elect to pursue such a lawsuit if a product harms you as well. If a product puts you at risk, you can’t be there for your kids, and that’s every bit as distressing as something making them ill or hurting them.
It can be difficult to figure out when to sue a company, but we’ll go over some ways that you can determine whether that’s the move which makes the most sense.
You or Your Child Suffers Permanent Physical Damage
If you use a product that causes permanent damage, or your child does, that can be fertile lawsuit grounds.
For example, there is a drug called Elmiron that the Ophthalmic Surgery publication says “appears to be toxic to the retina.” People use this drug to treat IC or interstitial cystitis.
This is a condition that between one and four million men and three and eight million women in the United States have. IC:
- Causes mild or severe bladder pain
- Often causes you to have to urinate much more often than average
Because so many women have it, many have used Elmiron in the recent past. However, the public is now aware of the eye damage that it does.
It is precisely when this sort of thing happens that you can sue a drug manufacturer. If you suffer permanent damage, then it’s bad for you, but also for the children who you’re trying to raise.
If the Child Has Developmental Delays
You can often tell fairly early on when your child has developmental delays. This is a term which indicates that a child:
- Is not going to reach their developmental milestones as quickly as the other children
- Might have Angelman syndrome, Mitochondrial syndrome, or others
Typically, developmental delays occur naturally. Sometimes a child will catch up and hit those developmental milestones with no problems. In other cases, you’ll need to see a doctor to try and figure out the child’s best path forward.
Sometimes, though, the child might not hit those milestones because of exposure to a particular drug or some other product. If this is true, then you can probably bring a lawsuit against the manufacturer.
You Can Often Bring a Lawsuit for Insufficient Side Effect Warnings
You might watch a TV commercial and hear the voiceover talk about the side effects of a particular drug. If you or your child uses that drug and either of you experiences those side effects, it will not do you much good to sue if the company warned you about what could happen.
However, you might decide that a lawsuit makes sense if the company failed to warn you about the side effects that you or your child experience. Sometimes, a manufacturer puts a new drug out on the market before being fully aware of everything it can do.
The same goes for defective products. If a product harmed you or your child and there was no manufacturer warning about that particular defect, then you have an excellent shot of getting a judgment from the manufacturer.
You Might Join a Class-Action Lawsuit
Perhaps you’re wondering whether to bring a lawsuit against a company that harmed you or your child. You might check to see if there’s already a class-action lawsuit against the business entity that manufactured that particular product.
If there is, then that might be what convinces you if you were on the fence. If several other moms or families have gotten sick or injured because of this product, then you know that yours is not an isolated case. You can get on board with their lawsuit and try to get damages from the responsible entity.
Your Child is Mentally Disabled
You certainly want to hold a company responsible if their product physically harms your child. You can also bring a lawsuit against them, though, if the product damaged your youngster mentally.
What you’ll want to watch for is evidence that they’re not learning as quickly as the other students once they start school. Maybe their reading, writing, and comprehension skills are not what they should be.
The real issue will be linking their struggles with a single product, such as a drug that your doctor prescribed to them. It will be challenging to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the drug is what caused their learning struggles.
If you can prove it, though, that could mean a considerable settlement, and with good reason. If your child struggles to learn, then they can fall far behind their classmates.
They probably will not have the same opportunities as the other kids. If it was a drug or some other product that did this, the manufacturer should compensate your family.
If you’re uncertain whether to sue, it makes sense to talk to a product liability lawyer. There are some attorneys and even entire law firms that concentrate on these case types.
You can talk to them about what happened, and they can tell you whether a lawsuit has merit. Trying to prove that a drug caused a physical or mental issue will probably be an uphill battle. Then there is the question of paying the attorney.
If you hire them on a contingency basis, then that’s likely going to make the most sense, since you won’t have to pay anything at all if you lose. If you’re a working mom trying to make ends meet, then that fee structure will be the most sensible one for you.
Remember that if a drug company harmed you or your child, they should not get away with that. You can hold them accountable for negligence.