Imagine a customer experiencing negative reactions after using your products. Talk about a nightmare! You can do your very best to ensure your product goes through the proper checks, but there may be some checks that fall through the cracks. The most successful retailers deal with product issues and it can land them in a heap of trouble. In some cases, that successful business will face a lawsuit due to a product defect and face public scrutiny over it.
While you can do your best to prevent a product defect from happening, you can be proactive by carrying product liability insurance and making sure it’s added to your risk management strategy. Let’s walk you through what happened with Vitamin Shoppe, a nutritional supplements retailer, and how product liability insurance can help.
Let’s get started.
The Lawsuit
Harvey Mahler purchased two bottles of Vitamin Shoppe’s One Daily Men’s 50+ supplements and took the supplements as the label instructed. Unfortunately, he suffered negative reactions after taking the product, such as:
- Slurred speech
- Headaches
- Vision issues
- Numbness in extremities
- Burning sensation in feet
- Hand weakness
- Confusion
- Vision issues
To put a damper on Mahler’s situation even more, he was diagnosed with nerve damage and kidney damage.
After further investigation on the supplement, a laboratory testing facility reported that the supplement contained arsenic, cadmium, and lead. The suit claims that the retailer failed to take the proper precautions to make sure the product was free from harmful substances. There are several individuals who also dealt with the same issues after ingesting the defective supplements. In Mahler’s case, he is suing the retailer for $50,000 in damages.
If a retail giant can deal with a product liability lawsuit, it can certainly happen to you and it can get expensive. Don’t count yourself out!
Learn how product liability can respond to lawsuits.
How Product Liability Can Help
First, a quick little run down about product liability.
Product liability insurance is designed to respond to bodily injury and property claims caused by product defects (manufacturing, design, and labeling). Manufacturing defects have to do with the actual manufacturing process, design defects occur with the design of the product, and labeling defects happen when the instructions/warnings aren’t clear. If you would like to learn more about the defects, you can check out our introduction to product liability.
If a customer filed a lawsuit against your company, product liability insurance can cover legal-related costs, such as:
- Court filing, processing fees, and evidence
- Late fees
- Hiring experts in the industry
- Travel expenses for yourself and legal team
- And more!
For many business owners, the financial repercussions of lawsuits could wreck a business and some may have to shut down their operations for good.
Product Liability Insurance and Canopy
While running a business can be a great way to earn a living, there are risks to running it and you can try to take every possible measure to prevent these risks from happening. However, you can’t count yourself out of an issue ever happening and wholly depending on your quality assurance checks.
With the help of product liability insurance, Canopy can help you protect your hard-earned money and assets. We have over a decade of experience helping manufacturers, importers, and distributors. You can rest assured that our team can create customizable policies for various industries and have peace of mind your greatest asset is protected.
Ready to protect your business? With us, all you have to do is fill out our online form and one of our licensed agents will get a quote for you within 24–48 hours. We pride ourselves on being able to write policies for a wide range of industries and add endorsements to give your business even more added layers of protection.
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