Children's Hoverboards May Lead to Products Liability Actions

Children’s Hoverboards May Lead to Products Liability Actions

JANUARY 16, 2016:

Being a North Miami Beach personal injury lawyer that helps those hurt in a variety of accidents, without question the most common are slip and falls and car crashes.  However, some of the most severe injuries occur as a result of defective products or product liability.  And often times products that are deemed defective are those that are produced and manufactured in mass quantities, such as children’s toys.

As the holiday season comes to an end, children’s “hoverboards” have been the most sought after toy by parents all over the world.  These hoverboards are essentially two-wheeled motorized skateboard/scooter type of vehicles that typically operate off lithium-ion batteries.  However, within the past several months, several claims have arisen surrounding these hoverboards.  Specifically, complaints of hoverboards overheating and ultimately exploding have even scared away some big box retailers from selling the product.

In Florida, a product liability action grounded in negligence requires a certain set of elements to be established in order to prevail.  Pursuant to “City of St. Petersburg v. Total Containment, Inc.”, the elements of a cause of action are as follows: (1) manufacturer must have a legal duty to design and manufacture a product reasonably safe for use; (2) manufacturer must fail to comply with that duty; (3) plaintiff must have an injury that is legally caused by the manufacturer’s breach of duty; and (4) plaintiff must have suffered damages.  Furthermore, the plaintiff in a products liability action must successfully establish that the product was unreasonably dangerous.

With respect to the exploding hoverboards, it is certainly feasible that injury could occur should a child be on board at the time of the explosion.  In that very unfortunate situation, the child injured must establish that the hoverboard was defective or unreasonably dangerous in some way.  Nevertheless, it has been speculated by some that the lithium-ion batteries required in some of the hoverboards are the root of the problem.  These batteries may be stacked within the hoverboard in a fashion that they are not meant to be stacked, as well as overcharging by the consumer.  Seemingly, the manufacturer’s decision to include the lithium-ion may very well be deemed a defective design, which could result in future litigation surrounding these exploding hoverboards.  As a Miami Personal Injury Attorney, these are certain incidents that must not go unnoticed for any lawyer or parent for that matter.

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Brandon Stein

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Brandon Stein is a Florida based trial attorney born in Queens, New York, and was raised in East Brunswick, New Jersey. Being the son of an accountant that owns a large firm in New Jersey, owning and operating a business is something that was engrained within Brandon Stein from a very young age...[READ BIO]

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