Houston Defective Vehicle Product Lawyer

It is the claim that the collision was survivable, or would have been far less serious, but the vehicle made it worse. The other driver caused the crash; the manufacturer is answerable for the additional harm caused by a component that did not perform as it should. Airbags that did not deploy or deployed improperly, seat belts that released or allowed excessive excursion, seats that collapsed, roofs that crushed in a rollover, and fuel systems that ignited are the recurring categories. Both claims proceed together, with responsibility apportioned under Chapter 33.

Because § 82.003(a) says a seller that did not manufacture a product is not liable for harm caused by it unless the claimant proves one of the specific routes the section lists — participation in the design, alteration or modification that caused the harm, installation of the product, actual knowledge of the defect, and others. The policy is that a dealer passing on a sealed manufactured product should not answer for a defect it did not create and could not detect. Where a dealer serviced or modified the vehicle, that is a different question and worth examining.

It is the element that decides most design cases. Section 82.005(a) puts the burden on the claimant to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, both that a safer alternative design existed and that the defect was a producing cause of the injury. In practice that means demonstrating a design that would have prevented or significantly reduced the risk without substantially impairing the product's utility, and that it was economically and technologically feasible at the time of manufacture. That is engineering work, and it is why these cases require expert analysis rather than argument.

A recall is useful and it is not the case. It can show the manufacturer knew of a problem, define the defect and identify the affected units, and it frequently opens up a design history that would otherwise require discovery. But it does not establish that this defect caused your injury, and manufacturers routinely argue that a recall was precautionary, addressed a different failure mode, or did not cover your vehicle. So it is a starting point for proof rather than a substitute for it — and the vehicle itself remains the central evidence.

Keep it, unrepaired and unsalvaged, and say so in writing to your insurer immediately. This is the most time-critical instruction on this site. Insurers arrange salvage or repair within days for entirely ordinary commercial reasons, and once that happens the restraint components, the event data recorder and the crush pattern are gone permanently. A written demand identifying the vehicle by VIN, sent to every insurer involved and to whoever physically holds it, converts routine disposal into a decision someone has to justify.

Wherever the failed part was not made by the vehicle manufacturer, which is common — tyres, restraint systems, airbag inflators, batteries and electronic modules are frequently supplied by specialist companies. Each is a potential defendant in its own right with its own insurance, and identifying the actual manufacturer rather than the brand on the vehicle is part of the early work. Where the maker is overseas, questions of jurisdiction and service arise and can consume months, which is another reason these cases start early.

The ordinary two-year period under § 16.003(a) applies, or two years from the date of death under § 16.003(b). But products liability carries additional provisions in § 16.012 that can affect timing independently of the general rule, and the analysis depends on when the product was sold as well as when the injury occurred. Because of that interaction, this is not a category where assuming "two years from the crash" is safe, and the age of the vehicle is a question worth raising at the first conversation.

By agreement, usually, and often later than you would expect. A defect case normally requires examination by an engineer, and that examination is frequently destructive — disassembly, sectioning or testing that permanently alters the item. Because the manufacturer is entitled to have its own expert present and to object to methods that destroy evidence, inspections are arranged under a protocol between the parties. Setting that up takes time, which is one more reason preservation and early notice matter so much.

Because they are proved with engineering rather than testimony. Establishing a safer alternative design that was feasible at the time requires expert analysis and sometimes physical testing, and reconstructing the manufacturer's own design history requires discovery that is contested. Manufacturers defend vigorously because an adverse finding has consequences beyond a single case. None of that makes a good claim unviable — it is handled on contingency like any other injury case — but it does mean the initial assessment of viability is more rigorous.

That page covers Chapter 82 across all products — consumer goods, industrial equipment, machinery. This one is specific to vehicles and to the situation that only arises in a crash: two claims from one event, where the driver caused the collision and the vehicle worsened the outcome. The preservation problem is also specific here, because a vehicle is the one defective product that a third party has both the right and the commercial motive to destroy within days.