Laws Covering Defective Seat Belts

At one time, not a single car had a seat belt. Then, as the number of people dying in accidents increased, the government passed a law that required installation of seat belts in all the vehicles that travel on public roads. Later, it also passed laws that pertained to the manufacture and sale of a defective belting device.

How a defect might become part of a belting mechanism?

A defective part might be created at a manufacturing plant. For instance, a lap belt might have a malfunctioning buckle. A group of parts might get assemble improperly. For example, a tension delivery system might not get assembled correctly.

The makers of that mechanism follow the instructions for a flawed design. The design for the earliest seat belts did not call for inclusion of a shoulder strap. The marketers fail to include an adequate warning, if the item being used to buckle people in their seats is known to be dangerous. The addition of a shoulder strap exposed the occupants of the vehicle to a new danger. Someone that chose to use only the shoulder strap could get strangled, at the time of a car crash. Yet vehicles lacked any warning about that potential danger.

A rule that applies to the use of seat belts:

If a belt has failed to keep the occupant of a vehicle safe during a crash, then that same occupant has the right to seek compensation for any damages. Does Car Accident Lawyer in Waterloo know what damages should be compensated?

• Current medical bills
• Future medical bills
• Lost wages
• Punitive damages
• Economic: The lost value of the damaged and repaired vehicle, when it comes time to resell the same vehicle.
• Repair costs

The role of the class action lawsuit

A class action lawsuit gets used when a given defect has affected a large number of customers. At that time, the group of affected customers combines their efforts, in order to sue the maker of the defective item. Still, not all of them go to the court and file a lawsuit. Only one or two people bring a lawsuit on behalf of the others.

The simple filing of a class action suit does not guarantee the court’s agreement to allow the disputing parties to face each other in a courtroom. Once it has been filed, a class action case needs to get certified by the court. Understand that the court does not automatically certify every filed case. Sometimes it declares that not all the people that have joined the filing class, the one that is actively suing a responsible party. For instance, a court might disallow certification of a filed case, if one of the participants got injured while using an entirely different part.