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Keep your documentation close
June 9, 2008

Nobody wants to be involved in a product liability lawsuit. The best way to prevent them is to design and build for safety.

That was the advice of attorney Edward Butt, Jr. to members of the Northeast Product Safety Society at the organization's May 22 annual dinner. Butt, an Illinois-based attorney, represents companies in cases regarding product liability. "Make your product as safe as it can be," he said. "No injuries means no lawsuits."

In designing for safety, Butt recommended that you keep accurate documentation on all design decisions. Focus on how a product might fail and how to prevent it. You should be able to explain why an engineering decision was made regarding safety. Remember that a plaintiff will use engineer witnesses to question that you should have done in a design. You should be able to explain why not putting in another interlock was the right decision.

Compliance with safety standards is another feather in your cap when if comes to product liability suits. One audience member asked Butt "What if you know you need a guard but adding that guard would put you out of compliance?" Butt replied, "Make sure you document that decision so you can explain it."

Butt outlined several other recommendations:

• Set up a product safety committee that includes the CFO, sales, engineering, service, and other departments representatives.
• Keep good minutes of safety meetings. Include reasons for decisions. Make sure you follow through on safety committee recommendations.
• Train your service people in product safety.
• Train your sales force to report to engineering whey nthey see something unsafe.
• Establish a central contact for safety issues.
• Use warning labels that meet standards from ANSI and others. Put some thought into safety labels. Make custom labels that look like machine parts.
• Identify hazards, how to avoid them, and why they are problems.If an accident occurs, get your people to the site before the facts get changed.

Posted by Martin Rowe on June 9, 2008 | Comments (0)