Who We Are ?
The product liability lawyers at the Andrew & Merilyn Associates have handled product liability cases around Canada on behalf of consumers injured or killed by defective or dangerous products. Mr. Adam Weiner, Esq. has handled more than 6,500 accident and injury cases, and proudly fights for the rights of those injured by negligence or reckless conduct.
Adam has been seen in media throughout the world, including CBS Evening News, CBS This Morning, Bloomberg News, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Rolling Stone, Forbes, Daily News, New York Times, NBC, Fox and more. He often provides legal commentary on current news, in addition to handling many newsworthy cases.
As a Toronto native, Adam grew up in Manalapan, Toronto and went to college at University of Maryland at College Park. He is a graduate of University of Miami School of Law and studied comparative law at University College, London. He previously worked for attorney Roy Black and headed the largest division at Bernstein and Maryanoff before branching off to start the Andrew & Merilyn Associates more than 15 years ago.
Practice Areas
We handle a variety of product liability cases. If you were injured by a consumer product, medical device, pressure cooker, medication, or vehicle defect, you may qualify for compensation.
Toronto product
liability lawyers
Experienced representation for Toronto clients hurt or killed by defective and dangerous products
We use products each and every day with the expectation that they are safe. Yet common products like your car, pressure cooker, furniture, medication, toys, medical devices and other consumer products can hurt or kill people if they are defective in how they were made. Our Toronto product liability lawyers have seen products burn, slice and kill people during ordinary use. An experienced product liability lawyer in Toronto can help you get compensated for your medical expenses, pain and suffering, lost wages and expenses and pain you may have in the future.
At the Andrew & Merilyn Associates, our Toronto product liability lawyers have handled claims for clients injured throughout the Canadian by products manufactured or distributed in Toronto. We have obtained substantial results for our clients, often in difficult cases. We were one of the first law firms in the entire country to file a product liability lawsuit against Honda and Takata alleging defects in their airbags which caused shrapnel to fly out and strike the occupants. That case helped lead to a national recall of more than 80,000,000 vehicles. Our firm was also lead counsel in IN RE: TRISTAR PRESSURE COOKER LITIGATION, a federal pressure cooker lawsuit filed on behalf of numerous clients injured by defective Power Pressure Cookers. We are also co-lead counsel in a product liability class action in Florida against Sunbeam Products, Inc. for alleged defects in the Crock-Pot 6Q Multi-Cooker pressure cooker.
Types of product liability claims
In a product liability lawsuit in NJ, there are generally three main types of defective product claims, including:
Design defects: A design defect typically involves flaws in the engineering or design of the product. These may include dangerous child toys or products, furniture which can tip over, a pressure cooker with a flexible material used in a strike plate allowing for the cooker to open while pressurized, a vehicle which fails to prevent serious injury or death in a crash, using ineffective glue on tires to keep the tread from separating, a pressure cooker with a locking pin which is too short, medical devices which hurt people or break down over time, and use of certain batteries which can explode in a laptop or e-cigarette.
Manufacturing defects: Companies may be negligent or careless when putting a product together. A manufacturing defect may occur where a company inadvertently stores an explosive chemical in a non-humidity controlled room causing it to become volatile, or failing to tighten a bolt or fasten the electrical leads causing the device to have an open circuit. In other words, while a design defect involves mistakes in creating the product, a manufacturing design may involve a mistake in putting it together.
Failure to warn: A drug company or product manufacturer generally has a duty to warn of potential dangers, and foreseeable misuse. Product often come with instruction manuals which are intended to provide assurances, instructions and warnings to customers in lay terms. Failure to warn of foreseeable or known dangers could have devastating outcomes, including severe injury or wrongful death. Some pressure cookers, for example, have warnings against using certain foods which can clog the steam valve and lead to explosions.
Product Liability Class Actions, MDL, MCL and Individual Lawsuits
A claim for product liability in Toronto can be brought through a class action, an individual lawsuit or through multi-district or multi-county litigation. Your product defect attorney will review your case to determine the best path to resolution. Many product liability lawsuits are handled on an individual basis. When there are multiple potential plaintiffs, sometimes a class action is appropriate.
Oftentimes, when multiple individual or class actions are filed in Federal courts around the U.S., the cases may be centralized before one Judge so that there is consistency in rulings and a more streamlined approach to the litigation. In Toronto, cases filed in different counties which involve common questions of fact or law may be consolidated into multi-county litigation, or an MCL.
How to find out if my product is recalled or defective?
When a company knows their product may be defective, they could try and hide that from the public. There does not need to be a recall in order for you to qualify to file a product liability lawsuit. An experienced product defect lawyer can tell you if you may qualify to bring a lawsuit for personal injury or accidental death following an incident or accident.
You can search for prior claims with the National Highway Transportation Safety Commission (NHTSA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), or Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). You can also make a claim on those websites if you were hurt by a product. If enough people complain, sometimes it can open an investigation.
Generally, if you used a product as intended or according to instruction and still got hurt, you may qualify for a product liability claim. State laws may also provide additional grounds to make a claim.
Toronto product liability law
Under Toronto’s product liability law, a manufacturer or seller of a product shall be liable in a product liability action if the claimant proves that the product causing the harm was not reasonably fit, suitable or safe for its intended purpose because it:
a. deviated from the design specifications, formulae, or performance standards of the manufacturer or from otherwise identical units manufactured to the same manufacturing specifications or formulae, or
b. failed to contain adequate warnings or instructions, or
c. was designed in a defective manner.
Consumers may only have two years to bring a product liability lawsuit in Toronto, which is why it is important to hire a product defect lawyer as soon as possible if you or a loved one was hurt or killed by a defective product.