If you were injured in a hoverboard accident, the person or people who can be held liable will depend on the situation that led to the injury. Some of the most common scenarios that lead to lawsuits surrounding hoverboard accidents and injuries include the following:
Product Defect
In some cases, injuries and accidents on hoverboards are caused due to the product or part of the product being defective. One of the most common product defects occurs with the battery of the hoverboard, which can start a fire and severely burn and injure the rider. This would fall under a product liability claim. If the hoverboard malfunctions in another way—it doesn’t brake, slow down, or turn when it’s supposed to—serious injuries can occur which can also lead to a product liability claim.
There are 3 main types of product liability claims:
- Design Defects. When a design defect occurs, all of the products are manufactured exactly how they are supposed to be, but because there was a problem with the initial design, all of the products are defective. Something about the actual design is problematic.
- Manufacturing Defects. In this case, the design is sufficient to create a safe product, but something went wrong during manufacturing that caused the product to be unsafe. This means that there could be one defective product or hundreds or thousands, depending on how manufacturing was done. This could include using defective parts, wrong parts, poor electrical wiring, or more. If defective parts are used on many products, they will all be defective. However, if poor wiring is done, this could end up being limited to one or a few products.
- Warning Defects. There is no defect in manufacturing or the design stage, but there are inherent dangers in using the product that aren’t adequately stated. There must be safety warnings and instructions on how to safely use the product. A retailer cannot sell a product and claim that it is safe when it is known that there are safety issues that can cause serious injuries.
All product liability claims are slightly different, but to be successful, you must typically prove the following elements:
- You were injured using the product
- The product was defective
- The defectiveness of the product caused your injury
- The product was being used the way it was intended to be used
In most cases, the manufacturer of the hoverboard will be liable for injuries sustained due to some type of product defect. In some cases, though, the retailer has also been found to be liable because they have marketed the product in a misleading way, claiming that they are safe when it’s known that they are not. The retailer has a duty to disclose known dangers, and if they don’t, they can be held liable for user injuries and accidents on hoverboards in some circumstances.