Vident Partners provides vetted product liability expert witnesses for cases involving design defects, manufacturing flaws, inadequate warnings and instructions, failure-to-recall claims, and CPSC reporting violations across consumer and industrial products nationwide. Request a referral today.
Find a Product Liability Expert →Overview
Product liability experts evaluate whether a product was defective in its design, manufacturing, or warnings and whether that defect caused the plaintiff's injury. Attorneys retain them to apply risk-utility and consumer-expectation analyses1, assess compliance with applicable safety standards and CPSC regulations2, and examine alternative feasible designs. These experts review engineering drawings, manufacturing records, failure data, and recall history — including injury patterns documented through the CPSC's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS)3 — to opine on defect, causation, and the reasonableness of the manufacturer's conduct. A manufacturer's duty to report a substantial product hazard to the CPSC within 24 hours of discovery frequently becomes central evidence on that question4. Their analysis frequently distinguishes user misuse from genuine product failure.
Under Section 15(b) of the Consumer Product Safety Act, manufacturers, importers, distributors, and retailers must report a product that may contain a defect creating a substantial risk of injury to the CPSC within 24 hours of obtaining that information — a duty whose breach often becomes central evidence in product liability litigation.
Case Types
Design defect claims involving inadequate safety guarding or stability
Manufacturing defect cases with materials or assembly failures
Failure-to-warn and inadequate-instruction litigation
Consumer product recalls and CPSC reporting disputes
Industrial machinery and equipment injury claims
Qualifications
Related Specialties
FAQ
A product liability expert should hold relevant engineering credentials, such as a Professional Engineer (PE) license or an advanced engineering degree, and have hands-on experience designing, testing, or manufacturing products similar to the one at issue. Knowledge of CPSC regulations and consensus standards (ANSI, ASTM, UL) and prior testimony experience are also important.
These experts are retained in cases alleging design defects, manufacturing flaws, or inadequate warnings, including consumer product injuries, industrial machinery failures, and disputes over recalls or CPSC reporting obligations. They help establish whether a defect existed and whether it caused the injury.
In general, expert fees are determined by the expert themselves, based on a variety of criteria. Among those criteria are professional experience, forensic and testimony experience, relevant certifications, case-type specialization, and publications. Vident does have some influence over expert fees by comparing experts within a specialty, but ultimately it is a personal decision by the expert.
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Vident Partners connects attorneys with qualified product liability expert witnesses. Complimentary consultation, 24-hour turnaround, no obligation.
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