$4.7 Million

Product Liability Settlement

The Case: Our client was working out at a gym when he was injured during a plyometric training session. Tragically, he suffered an impalement injury while jumping over a collapsible training hurdle. When he failed to clear the hurdle, the hurdle remained upright and did not collapse downward as designed and marketed. Our firm's initial investigation determined that this specific model of adjustable hurdle did not function appropriately at its highest setting. We filed suit against the seller of this product after determining that an alternative design would have easily eliminated the safety hazard and once we confirmed that this hurdle was sold without any warnings or instructions whatsoever. Throughout the litigation, Defendants blamed both our client and the gym operators for the injuries suffered.

The Outcome: Through our firm’s own investigation, we learned that a minor child in California had previously been injured by the same training hurdle in a substantially similar manner as our client. We also discovered that the training hurdle was imported from Taiwan, the Defendant was unaware of who actually designed or manufactured the product abroad, and that the Defendant had conducted no third-party safety testing of the product prior to placing it on the market. We retained product design engineers, former federal product safety regulators, physicians, and economists to prove that the Defendant was engaging in substandard safety practices resulting in a severe, catastrophic injury. After three years of litigation in federal court, we were proud to bring about some measure of accountability on our clients' behalf. During the course of the litigation, new warning labels were affixed to the product.